The future pessimist

What are you doing Wednesday?
Let’s see ‘The Future’.

Our faces squint in the dark-
skin headlines, cancer victims, texting machines.

I send you missives ‘that willow we planted by the river,
will blow down in the great winds of 2083.’

Our children will forgot what to call us,
give the cat to the man who fits the technology,

he will send it into deep sea,
she will be the first cat to explore the barrier reef.

I see her licking her privates, bored by jellyfish.
She will hunt escape cavities, press her paws against plate glass,
claws wanting trees, the future feeling of falling on four feet.