a foible

The land’s suburban, a ¼ acre plot that used to grow a swapping of soybean & corn. The man’s German by decent and by temperament. He has a pet. It’s an imported, domesticated marsupial, small, and it scuttles through the piles of leaves the man forms with his rake. For hours and hours, he works straight with no rest. The two trees, maples both, hang over him like a tarp packed with God’s lice. He looks up, then goes back to his work. There is no wind today. It’s late October still and still as a glassy lake. The pet is not leashed. It’s trained well and knows its name, which the man cracks out like a horsewhip when the thing goes too far. It comes back to him. The many hours this work takes gives rise to calluses, muscles that will soon cry Epsom, Epsom! Color is falling out of the daytime, sheds of skin. The man switches on an electric leaf blower to get remnants the rake left behind. His pet startles. Goes right up one of the two maples. The man shouts the thing’s name, screams come here, a few words in German, any potential of expletive his tongue had waiting in it. The pet’s up the tree though, climbing the system of branches. There are a few still full of leaves colored the earthly expression of a very deep psychosis.

Because of some weird application of footing, it all comes down: the leaves, the pet, all the junk that hides up high in a maple. Things you could never even guess at.

The blower stays loud.