The inarticulate dog from down the street asks me about the weather
So I stare up at the sun and tell him “Looks like rain.”
He nods his head in agreement and continues on his way.
The man with a clock for a face asks me what my name is
So I buy him a drink and tell him “My favorite color is the sun.”
He shrugs his shoulders and sighs as if he already knew it was true.
I talk on the phone with my mother
And tell her about the dog and tell her about the man.
I ask her what it means.
She tells me about how, when she was a little girl,
She would take her dog to the beach to go surfing, and sit in the sun and contract melanoma, and get in arguments with broken starfish that had washed up on shore,
And at the end of the day, sneak back home, leaving all traces of adventure on the shores of that afternoon, save the smell of the ocean still on her breath.
It was snowing the next time I saw the dog,
Splayed across the road,
Now a million shades of red,
With a bottle of whiskey in his hands.
The man with a clock for a face hunched over the dog,
A .22 in his hand,
Pointed at ten and two,
Ready to fire.
Oh... that is sad...