Cutting my own hair saves money 
better put toward a bill. I look presentable enough 
in virtual meetings, a genial blur.

Invoices. Empty correspondence. I’m not clever 
wearing this mask of inflexible competence. I live in bed
where I work and eat poorly while I work and dream. 

If I died now in arrears, and here of all places
(mattress, office, psych ward, coffin),

I’ll never have cared for a house cat of my own—
uppity, mercurial, impish, soft, private, unbothered—

so human-like in his affections and strangeness—
a companion named Sargent 

with twitchy, sensitive ears even at rest
who could mourn a little before biting my dead face to survive.

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