The Beautiful Almost

The cat is sprawled on its side

Laying loosely upon the foot of the bed
She is lying in the shape of dancing
Like some footloose fairytale character
Rabblerousing within a cartoon cabin
Perhaps near a fire caught in mid-papyrus jig
Much to the consternation of both mice and goose

I think, if only I had a mini accordion

How I would place it between her paws
To complete her minuet, to add
Music to her dream dancing
But I have no accordion nor fiddle
No trumpet or flute only my
Chest that sometimes whistles when I breathe

It is November and the cats sleep about

The house in so many various poses that
I forget that they are cats at all, these living
Still-life in the early winter of my solace, a quiet
That drives me to sleep, to enter my bed earlier
And earlier each night, to toil through indigo,
Detangling the many never was and beguiling the beautiful almost
 

December soon will arrive by the hard spin of

Winter when the real solitude begins, the
Rolling over into vapid mornings, the continual rowing up dream
The slow and repeated clamber between floors
My boat taking on water; and I would have half a mind to
Chuck it all, including myself, overboard, if it were not for a
Perennial habit of tossing my hope upon the peg of a coming spring.