Found Objects

You might look around and see things that make you remember. It made him stop short. He saw it in the garage on a shelf where he kept his important tools and things he intended to use again or thought likely he would need and there he saw it, the small yellow container with a black lid screwed on. He’d kept it for decades, used it once decades ago, a container of black carborundum grinding compound, industrial abrasive made into paste for Hardened Steel Seats or Cast Blocks the faded writing said on the back of the yellow container, still smudged with residue of the one and only original job and the black tin lid rusty from years of neglect and storage. He remembered. He remembered it all the night he used it, the night he used it back on the farm in Iowa in the rude shed after he […]

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Time Peace

(Two O Clock) There I stand in the rain on the corner, wearing my wrist watch and looking down at it so often the reason is I wait for you. I don’t really want to know the time. I really don’t know what time it is even when I watch the watch. Even if I stood in front of one of those giant faces with hands four feet long I wouldn’t know and I wouldn’t care what time they told me had come to pass. I’d be waiting for you without you and with you I wouldn’t care what time had come I’d be waiting for you to come. Oh, what time is it anyway? ♥

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ANCESTORY

I come from good people. I always wanted a brother, until the day I realized if I got one he’d be a pest. That’s why this picture of my father and his brother as little boys is so funny. Dad’s wearing a play suit and a bowler sun hat turned up around the brim and his brother is head and shoulders taller beside the Island house. The sunlight always looks so brilliant, almost forced, as if it had the ability to burn the paper they used the print the old deckle edged photographs. It must have been necessary to give the film to the attendant down at the general merchandise store and tell him how many prints you wanted and wait a week or more for the development. A week didn’t seem like too long to wait for your pictures. I waited a long time for my brother. They never […]

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