Listening to the heating pipes click, and slosh, to a cat clawing at a piece of furniture from the other end of the house where I am an impediment. Step up to this. (Watch it: airy.) Muzzle false. The plastic arm flexes. Long notes of starlings from the window. A stranger bursts into the room. She doesn't want a fuss made.

The sound that reaches me is flat. The cat that brushes me is orange. I rest my hands upon my belly. (D)e gustibus unum. Clattering on the roof. Arrive at your destination unencumbered for a change, son: good taste makes waste.

Another car squeals away from the Stop sign at the corner. And the street lights begin to come on. Shapely! The Japanese red maple drops leaves curled on themselves like tiny squinguille scattered on the lawn. Each one is something that I have lost. More like. Something I have liked. Like that.

The car engine turns over in the cold. Good. I spend the time feeling sorry for myself. Something got thrown into the works. My hands rubbed together over the vent, then blown on. (All the ways to live within the passive voice.) The jingle. Ah, I don't know how to work this anymore.

My pulse feels in synch with the movements of the moon. (Am I allowed to say that?) It rocks gently in its long cold orbit. Just sit there in the car, engine running, and watch it revolve. No it doesn't, I was lying. Watch me resolve. Watch me get up, turn. Watch me watch.