The hound has been locked out there for a month now. I've written to them about the incessant baying, the earth shattering low hum that he sends into the night. "That's no dog, that's a satellite radio dish installed by the government to track us" my neighbor tells me while getting the mail. I haven't been sleeping well. The fruit has been rotting, quickly, quietly, in the bowl and in the soft grass depression under the tree. I've been bowing my head nightly, praying for lemons, hard and bitter. The descent into madness is often quiet, the descent into madness on larger scales is much quieter. My back curls like a metal spring, laying sideways considering the alarm clock. Insanity is a spare word for entropy, the psychists nearly got it right. They say you'll notice it once the garden blooms in February or March, once the cherry blossoms stare you down, faces so unforgiving. A classmate asked "what would it take for you to leave". The only appropriate response is to lie, "when the leaves grow belly up".
If you lay your head on the metal bar of the bus while idling at a light, you can watch the world buzz neon time signatures. Endlessly, things fall into a rightful place. This deep gutted feeling is a technicality, a foul ball, something that will ease with spring. Feel the pangs go bang bang in my stomach. Count in 4/4 the ripple of potholes and concrete seams under the bus wheels, listen to the intruder, he might have something nice to say. Listen to the dog, he's not trying to tell you anything important.
The flank of the bus is plastered with advertisements for car insurance and personal injury lawyers. In The Promised Land all the bus passengers get a personal automobile, four wheel drive, air conditioning, stereo system, a dog with chain, and a personal injury lawyer business card. We're nearly there. See the cars go bang bang, slam and slide, flip and skid. The people inside the bowels of the bus are tugging at the stop request line. Violence: the yellow cord demands it. The driver is half dead in the fluorescent light. The headlights, triumphant and bovine, cut through evening traffic.
At dusk the dog's 80 decibel howl intensifies, he's afraid of the dark. The poor animal sounds large, two headed, three legged. He's missing a molar. Come April, the screech of copulating sparrows will drown him out. Soon after, fledgling birds raise their young voices and hurl themselves out of the nest to join the ranks of spiraling flight. The dog is left speechless at this senseless aviary act, we both listen. The melody proceeds in pangs and bangs, bird whistles, forward in 4/4 time.
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