Pick Your Poison
Michael C. Keith
And the Devil did grin, for his darling sin
Is pride that apes humility.
–– Coleridge
Something distracted Cecil Winthrop from the road ahead.
It felt like the weight of a boulder and caused him to veer his new
Audi Q5 hybrid into a telephone pole. While the collision was not
exceptional in terms of damage to the car, it proved sadly fatal for
its driver. Thus Cecil had not lived to receive what he had regarded
as the ultimate recognition for his extraordinary career––an
honorary degree from his alma mater. The accident occurred only
two miles from the campus of Dultry College, where the
ceremonies were to take place. He had been alone on his way to
the institution because he was eager to meet up with his former
classmates for an early brunch at The Rat. His wife and daughter
planned to join up with him before the commencement exercises
got underway at noon.
Cecil’s childhood had all the earmarks of a 1940s B-movie
melodrama. His life had begun in poverty in a western
Pennsylvania mining community. His mother had cleaned houses
while his father labored as a roof bolter in the underground shafts
of the Cleary Coal Company. On two occasions, Perry Winthrop
had suffered on-the-job injuries, resulting in long periods of
convalescence. His relationship with his four sons was not a
cordial one, as the elder Winthrop had long been afflicted by
serious bouts of melancholy. For him, the world was as drab and
cheerless as the mines in which he toiled for low wages.
By the time Cecil was in grade school he was certain he
wanted a very different life from that of his parents. Neither had
graduated from high school, and so it became his first major life
goal to get his diploma. This pleased his mother who preached the
gospel of education to her offspring.
“If you don’t finish school, you won’t get anywhere in this
world. I missed out and look what I’m doing, cleaning up other
people’s messes,” declared Mrs. Winthrop countless times.
While Cecil took her words to heart, his older brothers saw
little value in pursuing useless studies when they could make real
money in the mines. Despite their mother’s pleading for them to
remain in school, one by one they quit when they reached the age
of sixteen. So it was one of Mrs. Winthrop’s proudest and happiest
days when her youngest child donned a cap and gown and gave his
high school’s valedictory address.
* * *
Four years later, Cecil’s mother would see that same
ambitious son graduate with highest honors from the state
university. By then his father had died, and the oldest of his three
brothers had taken his mother in. Cecil promised himself that as
soon as he was financially able, he would give his mother a better
life. And he was able to do this sooner than expected as he quickly
rose in the ranks of the company where he worked as an account
representative. Little more than three years out of college, he was
promoted to sales manager. A nice salary jump came with the
advancement, and Cecil found his mother a small apartment of her
own and paid the monthly rent. Doing this filled him with great
satisfaction and pride, although it inspired a degree of jealousy in
his blue-collar siblings. They appreciated his generosity but felt
Cecil had become smug about his success and critical about their
modest way of life. From their perspective, he was becoming like
the people who ran the mines––haute and imperious. The Cleary
family clearly looked down on their low-level employees.
“Now don’t get too good for us, Ce Ce,” counseled Ben
Winthrop.
While Cecil laughed off his brother’s remark, deep down he
did feel superior to his siblings. He had achieved something they
never would. If that made him appear superior, so be it, he thought.
I can’t help what I am, and what I am is pretty damn impressive.
He continued to rise in the business world, and before he
reached thirty, he became vice president in his company. Two years
later, he was lured to a larger business and given the title of chief
operating officer. It was there that he met his wife, Tara. So as not
to give the impression of preferential treatment by her spouse, she
left the firm after they were married. During the years that
followed, she would give birth to a son and daughter. Unlike what
he’d experienced as a child, Cecil made certain his children had
every possible opportunity, which included private schools and
frequent travel. Life was better than he’d ever imagined, but he
was determined to rise even further. His drive to accumulate more
wealth and the reputation that went with it was far from sated.
* * *
By the time his children entered high school, he had risen
to president of his company, and his wife had joined several civic
groups. As his close partner in the quest to reach as far as he could
in his career and life, Tara urged him to become involved in charity
work. Soon his effort on behalf of the community brought him
accolades and awards. It even inspired talk of his entering politics.
Cecil was intensely pleased with everything he had accomplished
and was deeply gratified by the formidable respect shown him by
everyone.
I’ve got it all, he’d remind himself with ever-increasing
frequency, delighted by a life that had turned out the way he
dreamed it would. And things got even better as his children
graduated with distinction from ivy-league colleges and his wife
assumed the leadership role in the local gardening club and
women’s auxiliary group. The Winthrops exemplified the phrase
“pillars of the community.” Then came the honorary doctorate.
Cecil excitedly invited everyone he knew to a lavish dinner to
celebrate the honor.
“You’ll all have to call me Dr. Winthrop from now on,” he
half-joked at the gathering.
How far I have come, he congratulated himself, as the
guests raised their glasses in a toast.
“To the man of the hour!” declared his second in command,
Bill Castle. Man of the century you mean, thought Cecil, bowing to
the admiring throng.
It was in this rapturous state of mind that Cecil headed to
the rendezvous with his Dultry classmates on the day of his further
elevation. As he drove, he suddenly experienced a physical
irritation so profound that he lost control of his vehicle and
slammed into the utility pole, leaving his glorious world behind.
* * *
His death was a shock to everyone who knew him, and his
family was beyond devastated. The coroner’s report of the incident
that caused Cecil’s death reached Tara Winthrop early on the day
of her husband’s funeral.
“Oh my, God! This is . . . terrible. Humiliating. The press
can’t get this,” she cried to her children.
“What’s wrong, Mother?”
The report of their father’s unfortunate mishap detailed the
exact cause of his death. To everyone it had been unclear why a
relatively minor accident would kill anyone, especially since the
car’s airbag had deployed. When the Winthrop children read the
coroner’s description, they, too, were aghast.
“You see what I mean? That can’t appear in the papers. It
will stain your father’s good memory. He’ll be the subject of all
kinds of insulting comments, and all he did in his life will be
belittled. Everyone will think of him, . . . and us, differently. All
we’ve achieved and worked for will be diminished.”
“Let’s call the newspapers and ask them not to publish that
detail,” suggested Ronny Winthrop to his mother and sister.
He was informed by both of the town’s papers that it was
too late to consider his request. Neither would reveal what they had
printed, saying that he could soon read the obit himself, since the
papers were about to be delivered. The Winthrops held their breath
until their newspaper arrived, and then they let out a collective
moan after reading Cecil’s death notice.
Because of his lofty status in the community, his tragic
passing was a front-page story. The headline in one of the papers
read:
Prominent businessman and community leader dies
from picking his nose.
The story continued:
The autopsy revealed that Cecil L. Wintrop’s index
finger had been lodged in his nostril upon impact and that it
had apparently punctured his brain.
Cecil’s eldest brother gave the eulogy at his funeral. The
Winthrops’ weeping intensified when he spoke, though not because
of what he said about his tremendously accomplished sibling. He
could not help but chuckle whenever he thought about what led to
his esteemed brother’s untimely death.
Frank's Place in the
Desert
W. Jack Savage
Behind those capable and unselfish eyes was a faraway
sadness and for those who cared about Frank, it was a comfort to
know he had a desert getaway and a good friend named Carl.
Frank’s place in the desert was actually a small trailer with a
porous awning and more remote than the other seasonal trailer
homes on the ridge. Every morning he took coffee on his makeshift
patio and he would talk to Carl who came to visit everyday about
the same time. Carl would stretch out a few feet away and
appeared to be sleeping most of the time. He never moved even
when Floyd the postman delivered the mail. Sometime after noon
he’d crawl off and now and then would return after sunset. Carl
was a good listener for a rattlesnake and had grown to three feet
over the years. But whether or not that rattle actually worked,
Frank had never heard it.
Early Fall Light
William Martin
“Don’t worry. We’ll take good care of him.”
Aunt Beth said the same thing every summer. She gave my mother
a tentative hug, then stepped back beside me. Looking me over,
she softly squeezed my arm.
“First we’ll get a little meat on his bones.” She said. And
she meant it. Her meals weren’t extravagant, but squelched the
most voracious appetite. After a heavy breakfast of eggs, pancakes,
milk thick with cream, and what seemed like two hogs worth of
sausage, getting up to working speed often proved a slow-going
process. But once you reached your stride, you felt as if you could
go all day and well into the night if need be. You weren’t
necessarily hungry by lunchtime, but Aunt Beth still made a
sandwich or two to last until dinner. Surprisingly, by dinner hunger
hit again and the usual meat, biscuits, potatoes, and gravy settled
deep inside you. The heavy, hot meal along with the hard day’s
work prepared you for a night of deep, soundless sleep.
“We’ll get him toughened up.” Uncle Morgan said,
dropping a huge, callused hand on my shoulder. And he meant it.
By the time I reached the cattle ranch in early June, the first cutting
of alfalfa was complete and the 60 to 70 pound bales of hay dotted
the fields. They needed loading onto the flatbed truck, hauled and
stacked in the three tall, long, open-sided sheds that were
interspersed around the ranch property. It seemed as though the
silent bails waited for me, challenging me, somehow mocking my
thin frame. The bails were the first of three cuttings—sometimes
four if the weather held.
“You be good Danny.” Mom spoke, just for something to
say, something to fill the awkward silence. The isolation and
steady work of the ranch made mischief unlikely.
Her face always held guilt and anticipation when leaving.
Every summer she both looked forward to and dreaded my going
to the ranch. Since dad died she spent most of her days working
and her nights doing housework and looking after me. The
summers gave her a chance to be a single woman instead of a
single parent—without the continuous responsibility and watchful
eyes of a son at home. I somehow knew this and looked forward to
going to the ranch each summer almost as much for her sake as for
mine. By summer’s end, however, we both missed each other and
looked forward to being reunited.
“Write to me. And call collect if you need to.”
Her eyes moved from me to Uncle Morgan. An odd sense
of disapproval emanated from him, as though he neither
understood nor condoned his sister’s actions. To be sure, he looked
forward to my summer stays, but at the same time he seemed
bothered by the example my mother set for me. Of course, I would
never have asked him about his feelings. Men simply didn’t
discuss those things.
“He’ll probably be too busy to write too much,” he said.
“But we’ll make sure he finds time now and then.”
With a last, brief glance mom climbed into the car and
pulled out of the wide gravel ranch yard. Aunt Beth slipped her
arm through mine as we walked to the ranch house.
“Let’s get you something to eat. You look like you’re about starved
to death.”
“When he’s got some food in him send him out to the shop,”
Morgan said. “We’ll get lined out on the work for this afternoon.”
Although my Uncle Morgan didn’t own the cattle ranch, he ran it
as if he did. A tall, solid, tough man, his skin looked like worn
leather framed by a thick, gray beard. His blue-gray eyes and stern,
experienced face made him appear older than his years. He’d
worked other jobs in his youth, including a stint in the army, but
ranching was the only trade he really knew.
For the last twenty of the thirty years he ran the ranch, he
and my Aunt essentially worked it alone. Although modern
equipment eliminated the need for hired hands, it didn’t prevent
Morgan and Beth from working long, brutal hours. Of course,
during the summers I pitched in to help, but it seemed like little
contribution. Other ranchers often produced enough offspring to
comprise a small workforce, but that possibility ended for Morgan
and Beth when they lost one boy in infancy and another in birth.
After that, children became a medical impossibility.
The ranch changed ownership twice during Morgan’s
tenure, but each time the new owners kept him on as manager. The
last owners, a group of investors, handled numerous and varied
interests literally around the globe. They rarely visited their new
investment. The annual profit and loss statement told them all they
needed to know about the old, remote ranch with the cold, harsh
winters.
I spent my school-free summers at the ranch, moving irrigation
pipe, cutting, bailing, and stacking alfalfa, branding and moving
cattle. Sometimes we even used horses, which I loved, but Uncle
Morgan hated.
“Damn horse is just a tool,” he said. “Just like a rope or
hammer. Only most horses are dumber than a hammer.”
I came to the ranch pale, weak, and tired after nine months
of school boredom, but Uncle Morgan would immediately put me
to work stacking hay. Alfalfa dust filled the air catching sparkles of
light before filtering down my shirt and clinging to my sweat-
soaked back. The bales seemed to weigh more than I did and it
didn’t take long before I stopped to rest on one.
“That’s feed for cattle, not a recliner.”
“I just need a minute to catch my breath.”
“Okay, but I’m timing you,” he smiled. “Give it a week,
two at most. You’ll toughen up. You’ll be able to grab a bale in
each hand and one between your butt-cheeks. All I’ll have to do is
point you in the right direction and give you a shove.”
He joked, but I knew there was a measure of truth in what
he said. We worked from sunup until sundown and it didn’t take
long before I could keep up. I soaked up the sun, Uncle Morgan’s
ranching knowledge, and his stories of rough weather, rough cows,
and rough men. I worked hard for him and in return he worked
with me, teaching me in his stoic way. I admired his strength and
independence. I imitated his speech and mannerisms. At the point
of exhaustion, I looked to him.
“It’s not the man that makes this way of life,” he said. “But
this way of life that makes the man.”
I loved the way of life and emulated the man. By summer’s
end I was dark, strong, and another year closer to the man I wanted
to be. I found myself possessing energy to spare and a deep regret
that school was fast approaching.
Besides our labor, Morgan worked a cattle dog on the
ranch. It was unequaled at herding cattle and often did the work of
two men. Morgan himself did the work of three men, for even a
well-trained cattle dog has its limits.
After the death of Blacky, his top cattle dog for nine years,
Morgan began looking for a “suitable replacement.” He knew of a
neighboring rancher, whose dog had had a new litter, so he went to
inspect the new pups.
The pups were a mottled gray, black, and brown color, with
large paws and compact bodies; half Australian shepherd mix and
half God-knows-what. Uncle Morgan picked a male with frank,
intelligent eyes, paid the rancher and brought it back to the home
ranch. The pup developed an immediate affection for my Uncle
and didn’t even whimper when separated from the litter.
He named the pup Sue. Of course the dog was male, but
Morgan thought it a good joke. Obviously, the dog didn’t know the
difference between gender names, but Morgan thought this only
added to the irony of the joke.
I was glad to see I wasn’t the only newcomer to the ranch
that summer. The pup provided evening entertainment and
enthusiastic friendship. Although he labored to keep up in the
alfalfa fields he never whimpered nor lagged behind. He even ran
in circles, gathering alfalfa stems in his mouth as if contributing to
the work. His ears pricked up at the sight of cattle and his puppy-
growl contained serious intent if not a realistic threat.
Sue was a perfect fit and Morgan molded him to life and
work on the ranch. Their personalities began to reflect each other
in their independence and actions. By the next summer, with
Morgan’s training, Sue was already working cattle. I stepped back
from my interactions with the pup, so Sue’s training could continue
unimpeded by the possible confusion of two people’s instructions.
Morgan trained Sue by alternating praise with infrequent,
yet severe punishment. The dog was intelligent, eager to please and
quickly learned verbal herding commands and whistles, as well as
hand signals. Playtime with Sue was rough housing bordering on
brutality. Morgan’s favorite game—and Sue’s for that matter—
consisted of firm slaps at the pup’s head while it in turn bit at my
Uncle’s hands. The game grew in intensity until the dog became
frantic, prompting Morgan to slap him down in earnest. Sue didn’t
seem to mind, for his eyes held nothing but adoration as he sat
panting at my Uncle’s side.
“Just toughening him up,” Morgan said grinning. “I’ll make
him one stout son of a bitch.”
Morgan also decided to “bob” Sue’s tail that summer. I
didn’t understand the need for cutting off the dog’s tail, but
Morgan insisted. He held Sue and tied surgical tubing tight around
the base of the tail. He left it there for the day, cutting off
circulation and deadening the appendage. That evening, Morgan
unfolded his Kabar knife and once again held the dog still.
“Don’t worry, Danny,” he said. “It’ll only hurt him for a
few days. He’ll get over it.” He took the knife and with one smooth
stroke, cut off the tail. The tail landed in the dirt with a spattering
of blood. Morgan untied the tubing and more blood slowly oozed
from the remaining stump.
To our surprise, and my Uncle’s delight, Sue didn’t
whimper. He didn’t even flinch. He merely turned and sniffed
dumbly at the severed tail, then picked it up in his teeth and
playfully flipped it into the air. He had toughened up. Morgan
pointed, laughing and began the slapping game with the joyful pup.
Within two years, Sue became an invaluable asset on the
ranch. Where as a puppy he struggled to keep pace in the fields, he
now herded cattle untiringly, nipping at their legs with blinding
speed. He struck so fast that it often appeared as though he had
missed, but the tell tale flecks of blood on the cattle’s legs proved
his deadly accuracy.
One time a steer cornered Sue in the corral. The big
Hereford had the dog off balance and head-butted him, hammering
Sue against a corner post. The steer’s hooves kicked up dirt,
mixing the smell of dust with manure and turning the air into a
gritty haze. The dog scrambled to regain his footing between
blows, but lacked enough speed. The steer fell into a savage
rhythm, relentlessly grunting and butting, grunting and butting. He
hammered away, slamming Sue against the post.
“He’s gonna kill him.” I watched in frozen, fascinated,
horror. My eyes darted between the action in the corral and my
uncle’s face. I stepped forward, but faltered.
“He’s been in worse scrapes,” Morgan said. “If he can’t get
out of this fix, he ain’t worth a damn anyway.”
But his words didn’t mask his concern.
He hesitated only briefly, and then vaulted the rails of the
corral. At the same time the steer backed up, bellowing, Sue’s jaws
clamped tight on its nose. The dog hung on with a death grip. The
steer tossed its head frantically and finally dislodged the dog. Sue
thudded to the ground and lay still. I ran to the corral fence, hazing
the cattle away, while Morgan removed his blue denim jacket. He
spread the jacket on the dirt and carefully placed the dog in its
folds. The cattle crowded the corners of the corral, staring dumbly.
Morgan handed Sue to me, and then climbed back over the fence.
The dog blinked up at me and gave a low, menacing growl.
“Easy Sue,” Morgan said. “Sorry about that, Danny. Don’t
take it personally. He’s just got to where he won’t tolerate anyone
but me. You know, he’d die fighting for me if I was to put him to
it.” He gently lifted the dog from my arms. “Just last week a cow
lay dead up by Beaver Creek –hell, that’s a good ten miles away—
and ol’ Sue got it in his head I wanted that cow carcass protected.
So, he stayed there to guard it. I was halfway home before I
noticed he wasn’t in the truck, but I went on, figurin’ he’d catch
up. Well, two days went by and no sign of Sue, so I drove back up
to have a look. He was still right there and it must have been a hell
of a fight.”
“What do you mean?”
“Coyotes,” he said. “You could tell by the tracks that they’d
come down to the carcass and Sue held them off for two days. He
took a few knocks and scrapes, but he didn’t let them get the
carcass and he didn’t touch it himself. Two days of fighting
coyotes. Can you imagine that?”
I could. With Morgan as his trainer, I could easily see Sue
gaining the tough independence needed to survive and keep the
coyotes at bay. It was the same independent strength I admired and
emulated.
Morgan scratched Sue behind the ears as he cradled him with his
free arm. The dog looked up at Morgan, with just a hint of the
puppy like innocence I remembered. Morgan carried the dog to the
ranch house to place him in Aunt Beth's care.
“I think he’ll be all right. Hopefully this won’t ruin him as a cattle
dog.”
But the next morning Sue was right on Morgan’s heels, noticeably
sore, but ready for a new day and new challenges. Morgan
laughed, gave the dog a slap, and began their game once again.
“I’m going to have to stop playing with him like this,”
Morgan grinned. “He’s getting hard to stop.”
The third summer after Sue’s arrival at the ranch, the
neighboring rancher stopped by to visit. He had kept another pup
from Sue’s litter to raise and called the dog “Max.” Max was the
same mottled color as Sue, but had grown considerably larger. He
sat in the seat of the neighbor’s pickup while the old man and
Morgan talked in the front yard. Sue lay unconcerned on the
ground nearby.
I don’t know what prompted Max, but he hopped out the
pickup window and trotted lazily to where the men stood talking. I
also don’t know what prompted Sue, but in an instant he was on
Max with flashing teeth and a sharp, ugly snarl. The swiftness of
the attack surprised both men and the viciousness of the fight made
interference foolhardy. The men stood shouting while the dogs
fought on, a blur of teeth, dust, and fur.
At first it appeared Max was winning. Being larger and
stronger, he virtually overpowered Sue. But Sue’s advantage of
sheer stubbornness and a toughness slapped into him almost from
birth pushed him on. He fought savagely, seemingly impervious to
pain, until he eventually overcame the larger dog. Max attempted
to break away, but Sue offered no quarter and fought until Max lay
still. The neighbor’s dog lay alive, but barely. Sue limped steadily
over to Morgan. He paused briefly, then carefully lay down,
panting at the feet of his idol.
The neighbor slowly scooped his dog up in his arms. Shock
and anger mixed on the old man’s face. He gently laid the dog in
the seat of his pickup while yelling obscenities at my Uncle.
Morgan apologized, but after all, Sue was simply protecting his
territory. The rear tires of the old man’s pickup threw gravel as he
drove from the yard. He never spoke to my Uncle again.
The last summer I saw my Uncle was the last time the
ranch changed hands. The new owners had decided not to keep
Morgan as manager and after thirty years he suddenly found
himself unemployed. He was too old to hire out as a ranch hand
and too financially unstable to retire. His limited experience
handicapped him severely, but he eventually found work in town at
a small feed store. Aunt Beth also found work in town at a local
restaurant. At the end of that last summer, as fall crept early onto
the empty fields and mountains, Morgan and Beth left the ranch
that for thirty years had been their home.
The last of the boxes were packed and hauled away. The
few remaining odds and ends were loaded into the back of
Morgan’s pickup. My own old pickup sat next to his, faintly
mirroring it, despite its thirty-year age difference. Aunt Beth stood
in front of me and gave me a brief hug. Then she placed her hands
on my shoulders and looked up in my eyes.
“You’ve grown into a strong, young man, Danny,” she said.
“Take care of yourself. I mean that.”
Her voice and eyes held a sadness I’d not seen in her
before. Her furrowed brow and pursed lips seemed to be imploring
me. I raised an eyebrow in question, but her expression remained
unchanged.
“I suppose now that you’re working at a restaurant you’re
going to charge for fattening me up.”
She briefly returned my smile and then walked to the
pickup. She sat patiently on the passenger’s side, eyes forward,
hands folded neatly in her lap.
Uncle Morgan came from the house and we stood talking in
the yard. Sue sat in the shade of the pickup watching our every
move. The dog may have lost its puppy like innocence, but its
affection for Morgan showed even stronger in its eyes. The cold,
early fall wind cut sharp in the morning air.
“I’ll bet Sue will miss this old ranch,” I said. “And getting
after the cattle.”
“No he won’t. ‘Cause he ain’t going with us.”
“What?”
“He couldn’t take being cooped up in a house and I can’t
take him to my new job every day.” Morgan walked over, opened
his pickup door and began rummaging under the seat. “He’s too
used to cattle ranch life.”
He emerged from the pickup with a small revolver in his
hand. “I can’t give him away—hell, he won’t tolerate anyone but
me. C’mon, Sue.”
Glad for the attention, the dog jumped up and dutifully
followed Morgan. I wanted to protest, but my voice failed. I stood
awkwardly, my Uncle’s cold logic ringing in my ears. In the
surreal silence, he and Sue disappeared around the corner of the
barn. There was a long moment of silence and then the crack of the
pistol broke the cold, crisp air, echoing off the empty buildings.
Morgan reappeared from behind the barn and went to the pickup.
He pushed the gun back under the seat and turned to face me.
“Well Danny, you take care,” he said. “And come see us in
the city.”
If he felt any regret it didn’t show in his face. It didn’t
register in his voice. He showed no more concern than if he had
broken a tool and he slowly smiled as he held out his hand. It was
cold to the touch and the handshake was brief. He climbed into the
truck and he and Aunt Beth drove away.
I stood shivering in the yard as the pickup rounded a
corner and moved out of sight. The sound of the shot still seemed
to faintly echo through the air, drifting on clear, cold, currents
toward the mountains.
I buried Sue behind the barn. He lay on his side where
Morgan had left him, the cold wind riffling through his fur. A thin
layer of dust already coated a still, open eye. A dark, wet, dime-
sized spot matted the fur on top of his head and a tendril of bright
crimson trailed from his dry nose.
The blade of the shovel cut easily through the crust of the
ground. I worked steadily, methodically, while the dog seemed to
watch with its unblinking eye. The only sounds were the shovel’s
bite into the hard soil and the whispers of the cold, cutting wind.
When I had finished, I carried Sue over to the freshly dug
hole. With his front paws in one hand, his rear paws in the other, I
eased him into the grave. His head hung low, causing his body to
shift as it slid down the side of the hole. He ended up lying on his
back, legs in the air, his forefeet bent in a submissive pose. The
indignity of his position in death lacked the honor and respect he
had earned in life.
I knelt down, nose running, and reached into the grave.
Grabbing two handfuls of fur, I shifted his body until it lay on its
side. With the same methodical pace and without looking at the
dog, I stood and filled in the hole.
I stayed there awhile, leaning on the shovel’s handle,
feeling the smooth hardness of the tool. There was no sign of life
across the ranch yard, no sense of purpose. Empty. The steady,
chill wind gave a sudden, puffing gust, and then stopped. All lay
quiet. The cold morning sunlight pierced through the high, hanging
clouds, giving a last, brief hint of summer. But I knew summer was
really gone and that the glimpse was just an illusion.
Two Flavors of Sand
R. W. Haynes
You have to throw some maudlin sand into
The mix. If boozy tears embarrass you,
You’re likely to do what others like to do:
Stage the page for some cute stunt that shows
What a very clever little person you are,
Clean and up to date, the past no blast,
All those white corpses (hold your nose!),
Twitching like Hitler’s pickled brain in a jar
In Russia, twitching and bitching and switching fast.
You have to toss in some dirty sand you’ve found
Where stupid people wept and wallowed around
As if they were reeled up to a jukebox raft
Commanded by silver-tongued devils with knives,
Where these diablitos hollered and laughed,
To see these suckers fight hard for their lives.
As the Alapaha River goes underground,
Its old bed, its second-best of sand,
Still heads sadly to Florida, in demand
Only when oblivious rains have drowned
The new escape of love down in the limestone,
But only briefly, for this old love is gone,
And if a while the gar and sunfish cruise
Old haunts, the flood subsides, the river dives
To darkness; just its autograph survives
Retailing the flow of sedimentary news.
The shades of lonely ghosts come round,
Snickering emptily as everything dries,
And whisper about old memories they’ve found,
Though each already knows the others’ lies.
God's ComputerMiriam Sagan
I always wondered
How competing prayers were counted
All children praying "Snow Day! Snow Day!"
Grown-ups praying that school stay open
You say the prayers of parents
Are already word thin, transparent from overuse
Pleading, bargaining, the rot
Of panic at 3 am
While children's prayers
Will always win
Are plump and wet
As snow.
Freshman Barometer
Richard King Perkins
Four girls sit on a bed
in the summer before their
first year of high school,
playing the game of revelation
called “Truth or Dare.”
“What scares you the most?”
is the cycling question to which
they will all tell their truth.
“I’m afraid of getting fat.”
says the first. Murmurs of assent.
This is a good response.
“I’m afraid of being poor.”
says the second. Murmurs of assent.
This is a good response.
“I’m afraid of bad hair days.”
says the third. Laughter of assent.
This is an excellent response.
“I fear not being understood.”
says the fourth. Bolt of silence.
“What do you mean?” says the first.
“I mean,…. I’m afraid of bugs.”
says the fourth. Screeches of assent.
This is the best response.
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