I have wanted you
to let me be, peppered
and baked with the realist
concerns rippling across
a thunderstorm runway
on a Friday I never knew

like bravery praised in the palest light, well wishers waving their tiny hands while following the rule no one sweeps up

and the dustbin scrapes
so gracelessly while crickets
lose their minds, exhausted
like a car’s plastic brakes
neglected and tasked with
too many things that even
an experienced typist falls
behind in a race that begins
on austere ground, everyone
starting thirsty, ready to drop

into a bucket spinning at the sides when children toss pennies and sometimes, a quarter as the whites of their shirts ask for the spill

Cats No. 86 and 87 of the 500 Cats Project