Pretend things. Pretty ones. Pretend petty isn't. Pet no one. Pretend parties part us. Pretend we won't go. Pretend to care. Tend to care rather than. The alternative, not to belabor it, but you know it isn't like it was. That's why pretend exists. For that, and for the future. We've about lost that. What's next, I mean. I see it sometimes in a bird dead on the sidewalk from the air. I see dead birds sometimes, they encroach. In my peripheral vision, always, the dead animals, unlikely ones. A leaf bag is a dead, large panther. A Volkswagon under snow--a collapsed elephant. Pretend we are where they go to die.