This morning can’t win.
Though the doorstep fog
has cleared a cat drowses
next to the dryer vent,
exhaust curling like breath
into the stillest of air,
nothing else moves;
no one is there.

Except a squirrel
trying an open garage
and finding only paint cans,
a long held dream but
nothing to eat, only
smooth sealed metal
cool against his hands.

Nothing else, he moves
cautiously on, sticking
to the bushes, avoiding
the void beneath this
pale, dead sky.

He makes the tree.
I stay inside.