Familiarity
The good shade tree has been cut down. My chihuahua’s nemesis chihuahua has moved to Maryland, where her person will teach linguistics at Johns Hopkins. We hardly knew each other, sharing a floor and a ceiling. The sun streams in my window until the afternoon, when the sun streams in my window.
A week ago, I made a list of things I want to change. This morning, I assess progress.
When I traveled back across the country, I looked high and low for a new genre. I looked at Indian cuisine in Lincoln, Nebraska. The alpaca of northern New Mexico did not evade me. I learned to love lavender, and each evening I drove directly into the same setting sun.
Thomas Cook‘s poetry, fiction, and essays have recently appeared or are forthcoming in The Chattahoochee Review, Rappahannock Review, and Quarterly West. Since 2009, he has been an editor and publisher of Tammy. He lives in Los Angeles, CA and Galesburg, IL.