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Grocery Stores Have Different Names, Regionally

One time I sat in the shade and looked at a sunny patch on the surface of the lake—there was this rare hue of blue between the crests I knew to exist only in one other place. Everything at my left if I faced north, was just slightly out of reach.

In the Jewel-Osco, or Shaw’s, or Albertsons. Food Lion, Hannaford’s, Stop and Shop. 

But It Could’ve Been Anywhere

One of those big picnic bench swings. I don’t remember who I knew that would’ve had one in their yard, only that someone was always yelling at us to be careful. Just the other day I spit out a real-sugar version of grocery store brand Dr. Pepper. There are probably 1000s of things or more that also taste like dust that aren’t. I got a mouthful of it more than a few times. 

The mail comes and I look forward to it every single day. Except Sundays. I slide it out against the grit that somehow gets inside the mailbox. I say, The wind I bet, picturing the mailperson sprinkling it in. 

We’d called it supper because dinner sounded too formal. 

We all got good tips that week. 

Do you remember looking in the mirror as a child and thinking, does anyone feel this way at all? 

I’ve walked on or under 3 natural bridges in the past 5 years. 

Fish tanks, parakeets, sunflower seeds. 

Vaseline and bacitracin. 

Got a hook caught in the ditch of my arm once trying to get B.’s line unstuck from the brush. I had to use pliers to crunch the barb in my skin down flat so I could slide it out. 

Strawberry-shaped hummingbird feeder. Halfmoon lake. 

Pork chops and applesauce. PuPu Platters close to or in December I guess. Whenever we went into town. 

Over the years, there were several attempts to repurpose the “TV room,” but it was always called just that. 

Maybe I’ll move into the old house one day. Blueberries at the lake, strawberries in the backyard, trundle beds in the garage. Threw the last cast out and caught a good ol’ largemouth bass. 

A single unworn edge on the piece of green sea glass. 

Weather here like this reminds me of weather there like that and getting in arguments. Pushing X’s into bug bites with dirt-clod fingernails. 

There’s always a place I don’t want to leave. 

I don’t know if Charlotte died or not but sometimes I try to find out. 

Now 20-30 minutes into the woods minimum for a walk with the dog. 

Back in Tucson near Doolen Fruitvale: Stacey Toole on a sign heading west. 

The sun on the floor in the kitchen. The dog in the sun. Saddle up.

Paw

A plywood floor upstairs. Lying down on it. 

If he gets up he could put the radio on. 

He stays on the floor and imagines teaching the dog to turn it on. 

Just give the radio paw. 

Right here. 

No, right here. 

Paw.

Speak

He talks. 

He is not mute and he knows this because the dog tilts its head when he speaks to it. In the past, he’d been unsure. 

One time he recorded himself speaking to the dog so he could listen to the recording for concrete proof but realized the experiment lacked validity—he could not be the control sample and the experimental sample. 

When he was younger he thought about his life a lot. Like how long it would be. He stopped thinking about his life a lot when he got a dog and decided that he always did want to live somewhere sleepy. 

He thinks about his dog being loyal and having a salt and pepper coat. 

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Just to be safe, he thinks, he will take a photograph of his dog to make sure it is true that his dog has a salt and pepper coat. And to be sure, he thinks, he will take one photograph in color and another photograph in black and white and he will get the photographs professionally printed 36” x 48” at 300dpi for accuracy. Then he will take a color photograph of the professionally printed black and white print of the dog with a salt and pepper coat as well as a black and white photograph of the professionally printed color print of the dog with a salt and pepper coat. He will then get those photographs professionally printed 36”x 48”at 300dpi for accuracy, also.

This time through, both of the sets of photographs of the dog with a salt and pepper coat will take turns being the experiment sample and the control sample. He will not make a big deal about it or even think about it for too long and the samples will yield readable data. He just needs to be able to see it. So if he needs to, he will hang the pictures of his dog on the wall in the extra room in the back where the light can come in through the trees and stipple the images.