Sunday morning

Sunday morning with its slow motions. The porch a frustration with its layers of dirt spit up from the road. The pressboard home going up across the street looks like vomit. Around where the picture window will go, the paper hangs down like a tear drop in a Man Ray photo, way more beautiful than Old Glory drooping over the stoop of the next house over. The 9 a.m. sun shining bright, but not on the new construction. The foundation, deep gray, in shadow. The cars already go by at steady intervals. Living in the valley of the SUVs. Almost wanting to pick up a rock and chuck it at the next one that passes. Like when I was five, and mom and I were living in our first apartment after the divorce, on Watertown Ave not far from the stadium, how I'd chuck rocks from our dirt-and-rock lot separated from the road by a steep slope and a few layers of trees, mostly pines, I think. How I'd thought I'd hit a couple of cars until finally I heard the thunk of hitting one, probably on the roof or trunk, I'd suppose later. How I never felt bad, and kept on throwing rocks, or snowballs, for the rest of the year, or however long it was, that we lived there. But of course now I just grab my empty mug and head back inside, which is good I guess.

Morning of mowing

Morning of mowing the lawn, in part. Morning of taking care of the business end of "the real work." Morning of spinning Duplo people on their heads and arguing in my head with Adobe InDesign forum folks about the pros and cons of ID's paragraph composer, even though I decided the argument isn't worth it. Wonder why my mind wastes time with those things it decides it doesn't want to think about. Remember when I was much younger being baffled by the psychiatrist's question: "Does your mind play tricks on you?" I had no idea how to answer. Even though the phrase "mind play[ing] tricks" is something of a cliche, the question, set in an all-too-serious context, became exceedingly strange: pure defamiliarization. I couldn't really respond at the time, struck dumb as I was. Settled for some variation of agreement with the doc, tantamount to "whatever." Later, in the night, far from the office, very near sleep, my earlier confusion made sense to me: what am I if not my mind? To separate "[my] mind" from "me" was word trickery. A language-enforced schizophrenia. No wonder they thought I was crazy. The better question for the docs, perhaps, would have been something like "Do you think you hear things you're not quite sure you're hearing and that part of you simultaneously knows there's no reason to be hearing?" or "Do you get confused in wondering if you have just been thinking or just been speaking aloud?" Some junk like that. Time for lunch.

Time of lifting spiders

Time of lifting spiders on the garage door. Time of filling the Yard Machine with gasoline. Time of pulling the string. To Sartre everyone had a string to pull. I'm skeptical. Unsure of the "every," unsure of the pull. In lives so pulled. Time to pull becomes time to push. Time of waist-high weeds along the edges. Time of the neighbor's treacherous fence, jutting at us through his property-line-speak smoke screen. Time of know your rights. Time of swallowing allergen-induced post-nasal drips. Remember the time of action figures in exotic jungles of not extraordinarily tall grass. Remember the time of die-cast metal cavalry. Outlaws and marshals and Texas rangers. Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache. Brown patio of the mid-western plains. Surreal fields of freshly mowed grass. Father and son animating cowboys and Indians. Cowboys and Indians meeting their demise by the roll of the dice. Sgt. Pete Stone fires at Painted Horse. Storm Eagle wings an axe at Wes Bonner, the great scout. Rain Hat positions his rifle from behind a petrified tree, taking aim at "Shotgun" Crawford. Remember the names, remember the time. Worlds we leave behind. But who's that in the make-shift saloon behind the walls of Fort Larame? G . . . W . . . Bush. Don't remember him.