Some days you sit down to write and find your words have enlisted.

grocery list
Target list
hardware list
to-do list for him
to-do list for her
housecleaning list
phone call list
list of ideas you’d pursue were it not for the long line of lists snaking its way around the queueueue in your brain

Some days you can’t see straight think straight walk straight for the lists littering your kitchen floor.

You need a match to burn them into soul-lightening ash;
you write “matches” on the grocery list.

You need a hammer to smash them into spirit-lifting smithereens;
you write “hammer” on the hardware list.

You need an exterminator to blast them into psyche-strengthening shrivels;
you write “exterminator” on the phone call list.

Some days you realize, suddenly and with an olfactory jolt, that “litter box” has risen to the top of your list of lists.

You hand the laptop to The Cat.

He watches you shuffle away, Defeat in Orthotic Slippers.
He checks his e-mail, then writes this.