Settled

We settle down on the bed again after breakfast, 

we three, the cats and me, all of us elderly now 

and free to indulge — though they are freer than me, 

and can stay here all day if they will, and in fact they will

until I give them their lunch (the small dry biscuits 

that keep their teeth clean and strong) after which 

they'll wander outdoors awhile, now that the weather's autumnal: 

cooler than the worst heat of summer and not yet chilly winter 

whereas I, when I finish the coffee I brought back to bed, 

and finish this morning's poem, shall rise at once 

to go out into the world — where, too, I am settled, 

into my familiar lifestyle: the small town, 

the old and new friends, the little cafés, 

the trees and the nearby river.  

April Poem A Day 2014, day 28: a settled poem

Based on the “Stretching the Sentence” exercise by William Wenthe in Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry (Dos Gatos Press, 2011)