Eventually, things become

what they are

without the overlay.

The cat died,

the last one, and

we wept and placed her

on a chair till morning,

but couldn’t sleep

with a dead cat in the room.

The dent in the car

bothered me once

and now it looks like art.

Take our housekeeping lapses

or inability to drink wine

or the collapse

of civilization.

It’s a comfort

to settle into things

as they are

instead of what

we wanted them to be.