This painted cat

on my balcony

hangs in this sun,

bleaches out

it’s wooden

survival kit,

cut short-

then rots

chips

paint

cracks

widen in joints,

no infant sparrow wings

nestled in this hole

beneath its neck-

then falls down.

No longer a swinger

in latter days, August wind.

                                        ~Michael Lee Johnson

                                              Itasca, USA