Category: Writing

The neighbor carrying a baseball bat and walking her elderly dog stops across the street from us. “Did you hear about Bernie?” I don’t know Bernie. The white terrier – Justin’s dog… ahhh, Bernie.  A pit bull on Suburban broke loose and killed him. I have a pit bull. I understand the looks.

With the windows and doors closed and the morning dark, nothing grabs me: no birds, no wind, no swirl of cloud or peek-a-boo light. With no focus, the words stay hidden – difficult to extract. Twenty-four, then thirty-four, I’m tugging and pulling them to fifty-two. Clementines, two bags of chips, blue ceramic bowl.

The two-arm propeller red pinwheel spins counterclockwise on the map. Red zones and red cones – warnings and watches. Plywood windows, windy palms, now the waiting begins. Here the late afternoon skies were clear with a quick sun shower and a double rainbow.  The clouds were mountain big and rimmed in gold.

At the edge of the dining room table, between the aloe plant splayed like an upside down octopus and the tangled Pothos, sit seven objects grouped together: mug with paint brushes and pens, wallet with credit card on top, key fob, squeaker, sunglasses, earbud case, house keys – a still life, my life.

The morning colors! The morning colors! The morning colors! A blue so clear and light – oranges so vibrant that the word feels too flat and singular – maybe it’s all the fruit (peaches, oranges, tangerines). Clouds roiled with grays.  And later: whites, golds, yellows, and silver. The morning colors! The morning colors!

It was dark. Now it’s pale and light. My fingers sting from the cold air walk. Jacket weather – this again. The dog shakes a spindly toy squeaky chicken with long and crinkly legs. His play is violence. A reminder that in the calm of dawn, somewhere, something is being torn apart.

Rain. The wind isn’t strong. It blows and rustles enough to be heard. This is the first day of fall. Autumnal equinox – two words that sound better when one pays attention to the syllables or lingers in the half-light / half-dark space between them… words falling and tumbling like the morning wind.

It’s dark. There are no morning noises and I’m waiting for the dawn. When the hum of the refrigerator clicks and stops, its presence (absence) becomes clear. Through the trees just beyond the parking lot, red taillights at the donut shop – different morning, different routine. I am struggling to fill this space.   

Between the aloe plant’s tentacles, two skinny stalk mushrooms sprout. I imagine being small. I imagine being under them. Pleated whitish-green button caps the color of glow-in-the-dark moons unfurl high like canopies. I think of the cool shade they would cast – how they might keep me dry in a pouring rain.

The world was busy and rush-hour loud. Dusk waited patiently for quiet before opening the door to night. The lawnmower next door stopped, the traffic on the thoroughfare hummed but no longer raced muffler loud and engine screaming. Even the sirens finished putting out their distant fires. Darkness and quiet, cool September.

The dog nudges my hip with his nose. He sniffs the air and whines. His wagging tail whips me as he walks away. Two birds are talking somewhere out of view. The backyard maple, maybe three years old, is browning at the top. Sunlight cuts shadows on the deck. The dog waits.