I know, because I’ve been there and seen it myself, where
he dragged each drawer out of his dresser into the backyard
and flung his clothes into an empty lot. What was I supposed
to do after that? I sat on a bus for a while. I looked at my
cigarette filter, the light brown seepage collected there. The
body is also a net, the mind—as if you could toss garbage
into a well for fifty years and not come to harm from it. His
worn out briefs stayed stuck to the cyclone fence. Does anyone
live an ordinary life? I don’t think so. My father, on his death-
bed, wrote on the back of an envelope offering cable TV
services from AT&T, “I have no further comment.” My mother
left the room in a huff. That was a while ago. Why couldn’t I
mostly remember just that—the winnowing of the details down
to a representational moment? After I got off the bus I watched
two plovers play catch-me-if-you-can in the surging Lake
Michigan surf. Insufferables, I thought. Running for the joy
of just running. That was my interpretation. I never even
considered the fact they were fleeing. You see what you need to see.