Stock photo. For illustration purposes only. Cooked Groundhog, Cooked Song On a tangible hillside in honest-to-goodness hilly Pittsburgh, circa 2010, a man is robbed of his bush berries in broad unfiltered daylight. The culprit is furry, breathing. The man clobbers the culprit and cooks its wet pink meat. The man makes a quiche, perceptible steam puffing out. He carries his dish to a party, yum yum. The story gets around. The man’s sister in fields-and-cows Virginia tells some acquaintances. One says, her thoughts coming hot on the air, “That sounds like a country song: Kill a groundhog and put it in a quiche. Tell him to write a song.” The sister does. The man does. The man jiggers words around in his pulpy brain and sends them to his machine, making it blink but not like eyelashes, just mechanically, across and across the front’s hard glass. Next he thinks up chords to go along. He gets the stringy strings on his guitar to quivering, his throat hums and his Ad...
Now That Mine’s Worse than My Dog’s While the world blows up we go along, go along, attending to trifles. Some of us, at least me. I think all the time about my hair. I was running over to Jennifer’s for my trims. No wrangling for beauty shop appointments, anymore, and having to drive all the way into town. But there were issues. I’d go over with my towel, maybe my head already wetted in anticipation, and she’d plant me on a stool on her porch in the cold wind and demand how much do you want off? and then whack whack whack, she’d be done. No wasting time with that woman. No coddling me, as if she’d pined for me to visit and now I was there she could deliberate with me over how to best fix my mop, weigh every snick, draw out the process. So for one thing, I needed more attention. The other thing was what my grandgirl said. She said my hair was damaged. She said I shouldn’t be blow-drying it, frying it to death. She said to soothe the frizz, instead I should work in some coconu...
When the Parents Fluttered Away Brother Touslyhead takes the bigger bed upstairs, where I can read to him from the purple chair. Sister Ringlets and her math and p syc h textbooks, the one across the hall. Sister Braids gets my husband’s and mine downstairs, right around the corner from the living room. So where does that leave us? It’s all right. I love it on the sofa. It’s where I take up camp whenever I’m fevered and hacking, or too riled by the manic dead-of-night thoughts to sleep. This time, both of us chased from our bed, we’re elaborately stocked with pillows, blankets, and all, and from my berth I can still hear his breathing inches away, his toasty warm stirring, down on the floor. He’s even put his clock like he likes it, approximate to his bedding, the numerals lasering a path to his eyes. For four whole nights the arrangement works just fine. Grandparents are adaptable , right? They can handle things, right? There’s extra laundr...
The first time it happened—late in the evening, in the living room—I yelled. The second time, too. I couldn’t just sit up from lying on the sofa (or was it the other way around?) without my brain suddenly spinning inside my skull, circling violently. But almost right away, it righted. The loopiness cleared. Then I figured out I didn’t have to yell. It didn’t hurt. It was just weird and awful. The next couple of days, I knew not to lie down or tilt my head too far. If I went dizzy erasing the whiteboard after class, from overreaching, I could drop into a chair until I steadied. If the room momentarily veered when I perambulated past my students at their desks, I could flail my arm around, try to stabilize. In case my brain was bleeding out from the head bang two weeks previous , we decided to take me to the ER. Now that was a trip. Because I said vertigo , when I checked in, because I said maybe a concussion , they told me to seat myself in the fast-track waiting area. Soon I go...
Precious. Rich with diamonds these days!!
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