The Museum of Temporary Hideouts

Posted bymarialbergPosted inpoetryTags:, , , ,

I enjoyed today’s Poetics prompt at dVerse Poets Pub from Melissa Lemay. Inspired by the poem, “August Morning,” by Albert Garcia, she challenged us to “wander from room to room as if in a museum.”

Toilet Kitty by Maria L. Berg 2025

The Museum of Temporary Hideouts

We say nature abhors
a vacuum, meaning
empty spaces don’t
stay empty for long.
This house has a vacuum
in its walls and every space is filled.
Like the rooms of bygone eras
in the local museum,
this house collects
objects of yesteryear,
the tools once innovative
now obsolete.

Yet somehow,
for over a decade
kitty keeps finding
new spaces for his
temporary hideouts.
He spent a week returning
day after day to a spot
behind the entertainment
center with the old, fat tv
that only plays VHS tapes
and DVDs. Two weeks
in different spots under
the guest bed squeezed
between craft tables
and an old easel.
Then there was the week
when he curled up
in the bass drum
of a friend’s kit left behind
for a girlfriend in Canada.

This week he’s a toilet cat,
spending his days in the upstairs
bathroom where the fancier
towels collect in the cupboard
and guest shampoos
congregate among gifts
of bath bombs and sugar scrubs,
Epsom salts and soaps.
It’s beginning to smell
like his fur in there.

I’m waiting for him to discover
his next unexplored hidey hole
before I give the place a good scrub.
I’m curious to see which of the filled spaces,
once a vacuum nature abhored,
he will redefine as the perfect
emptiness for a week of filling.
Which of these life-size diorama’s
will be added to the museum?

Published by marialberg

I am an artist—abstract photographer, fiction writer, and poet—who loves to learn. Experience Writing is where I share my adventures and experiments. Time is precious, and I appreciate that you spend some of your time here, reading and learning along with me. I set up a buy me a coffee account, https://buymeacoffee.com/mariabergw (please copy and paste in your browser) so you can buy me a beverage to support what I do here. It will help a lot.

13 thoughts on “The Museum of Temporary Hideouts”

  5. I have been a kitty cat owner four times in my life … You captured most every place there was for them to hide! Snowball #1, Kasper, Snowball #2 and Rocky. Love this poem!

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  6. I love your museum of temporary hideouts, Maria , and the photo of your toilet cat. My cats follow me into the bathroom, but wouldn’t sit on the toilet seat. I think they respect that bit of space, at least!

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  8. Maria, I enjoyed your tour by proxy with your kitty. I have official beds all over the place for them, which they use liberally but also, like your kitty, they have their unofficial beds also. I like how you say the bathroom cupboard is starting to smell like his fur. Seems he would start to smell like all of those “smelly” things in there.

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