Spitball Army

Her vacation bag’s full of clothes that reek of relatives’ tobacco. Once home, she hangs them on the Quercus to billow, to purify.

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I heard he’d jumped. I didn’t know what to feel. We’d recently met again, 30 years past 12th grade. I miss him; I hardly knew him.

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The wooden steps, supple in the warm season, creak and groan brittle protests as I climb to the deck. My cold bones ache, as well.

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I’ll show you the ropes, he says to me, I can’t do this forever. I weigh his legacy vs. my dreams. He comes up short: my mistake.

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I ask the bookseller for Nikolai Gogol. Bemused, he hands me Niccolò Machiavelli. Amused, I buy Alice Walker. He looks confused.

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Colorful and crumpled balled paper floor covering. Sweeping feet and arms, he clears a path to the sofa. The ultimate gift: a nap.

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Thin, flat, square: record album. Large, circular, centerless: hula hoop. Envelope: money.

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Dirty Santa office party spoils: one bright red sock monkey. Anonymous gift on neighbors’ porch swing: one bright red sock monkey.

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Gliding silently, the satellites record the planet, its ice floes, coral reefs and Conestoga wagon trails, and harbor no judgment.

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Unlike her mum staff, the library director engaged me in conversation about her mission to serve the “underpoor,” then blessed me.

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