\ you could call it an apple dare

i encourage her to do so, knowing she's been told not to, the oldest story in the bible. i wonder what this makes me, but i only wonder this years later, and only to make myself laugh all along the long drive home, tired of wasting my time imagining my own greatness. and then i remember how i in fact left her in worse shape than i found her, and wonder what this makes me. leave only footprints, take only photos, la la la la la. i still come across a picture here and there.

the bottle calls me. not even from close proximity, but through the cellular towers, through its brand newe phone/pda/camera. i want to say it would be a mistake to think that if you could only combine all the people you've loved into one person who included all their qualities you might find happiness instead of a bulky companion with too few buttons to push. i break down on the shore and have one. then another. we're suddenly on the waves of hood canal and the sensation of losing my hat is like finding photos of old rollercoaster rides. i have one more bottle and imagine the warning i would write onto the side. careful, do not open. contains empathies.

a rising economic sea lifts all boats. i find now these waters are too deep to drop our shrimp pots. one has drifted into an abyss, dragging the buoy down with it. or maybe it was stolen, or the line cut by an activist, freeing the little crustaceans to live out the rest of their days in a catfood filled prison. i pull the line hand over hand, like begging for food, really working for it, casting my net into the depths of galilee. there are three shrimp in the pot. PETA would roll its eyes.

she liked vocabulary, and always wielded a word per day. there's no harm, she said, in looking up new words and putting them to use. the worst can happen is people mistake your curiosity for pretension, and having people understand your true intentions is its own kind of hell, anyway. i add a new phrase now and again. the more the manier.

i drove up to my mom's house today. i walked the ten back acres looking for morels and garter snakes. she didn't show up, so i turned to leave. i had to go back, cause i forgot to tie up the dogs, and antagonize the geese. she showed up at that moment. i let her know just by standing there she doesn't have to wring her hands the loss of my affection. it's not everything she wants, but i bet i'll get softer in old age, when i have been forced to transfer the last of my memories to scrapbooks and photographs. la la la la la. i wonder what else i'll have forgotten by then.