-when nothing much is happening-

walking into a room

I’d long ago dedicated

to be “the spare room”

which has become over time
a gallery of objects,
agonizing in a purgatory of plastics
and metals, things I presume

I might resurrect someday, like

the electrical apparatus which

no longer works,— well, it works,

but makes a high-pitched 

sound when it’s plugged in

until the internal rotating mechanism
gains momentum, then it smokes.

now I see the cat perched on the sill

of an open but screened window

looking out at a squirrel, plucking
and munching on currant-berries of the bush.

there’s nothing fluid in the motion

of squirrels going about their daily procedures,
those jerky moment-to-moment instincts of survival.

but the cat is frozen in its observation

much like her sleek and powerful cousins of the savanna

occupied in the detailed study of antelope, which reminds me

I've got a steak in the fridge.

so I'll find my way to the kitchen,
get the frypan out, the muscular
cast-iron beauty, sixty years if it's a week,

drizzle of virgin olive oil, pan to the burner's low, blue flame,

the sirloin strip seared to black with sautéed onions
and maybe a green vegetable, french-cut on the side,
a sensible meal, then I’ll type-out the masterpiece

running around my brain the last couple of hours.