adopt

May 20, 2023

COMMON UNDERSTANDING

It didn’t surprise him that he
quickly understood the cat
they adopted during the pandemic
for all he had to do was apply
basic feline logic, that everything
in her new home was either
hers or theirs collectively,
it was just that simple.
He had come from a place,
a life, where there had been
hers and theirs, simple.
When that life ended, as everyone
but him seemed to know it would,
he came away with that portion
of theirs for which his ex cared least
or of which she had grown tired.
So he and the cat had a comfortable
understanding until more and more
of theirs became hers alone.

April 10, 2022

TROVE

He says he has found
a treasure trove of home movies
8mm film in small metal cans,
the sprocket holes intact
for the most part, my childhood
I thought captured on 35mm slides
that I am too cheap to pay
to have digitized, my adoptive
parents ill at ease with a camera
assuming always back lighting
was preferable, and I admit
it was nice to be an angel
or at least so my perpetual
halo allows me to claim.

But we have no projector
and given his photographic
skills, his cinematographic ones
suggest a black and white
zombie film of embarrassment,
but I tell him thanks
and imagine several uses
for the circular metal cans.

November 13, 2021

IN HIDING

It slipped away. He had no idea where it had gone, but he knew he had to find it. It could have been accidental, an errant passer opening the gateway and off it went. But he was so reliant on it that he knew he could not do much of anything without it. And he couldn’t get help finding it without endless waiting, a waste of time that put him even farther behind. But it was stealthy, and could easily hide in plain site. He hadn’t wanted to adopt it, but he had, and it had consumed him. It was that simple, life without broadband was unimaginable.