Smokey’s Good News

When the temperature peaked at 86 degrees, I looked out the window to see an unfamiliar dog lapping water from the end of our slip ‘n slide. I asked Jackie, “Is that the neighbor’s dog?” And even though just yesterday she had been bragging about acing her hearing test, she looked at me and said, “What?” The neighbor I have in mind is a concept poet who lives across the street. He just released a chapbook of eighteen poems; each poem in the book takes its title from one of the eighteen holes at the local putt-putt golf course. Poem number five is called “Buzzard’s Bluff” and number fourteen is called “Double Trouble.” My wife sent him a pie two years ago when his truck was crushed by a tree during a devastating storm. She brought him lemon bars last year when his lover, a left handed woman from Detroit, was stung to death by bees.

I called out to him, “Smokey, is this your dog?” He said that it wasn’t but if I wanted him to, he could call the number on the tag and return it. When Jackie asked what happened to the dog, I told her that for some reason Smokey said he would call the owners and take care of it. Jackie sat down next to me and said, “Poor Smokey, he probably just wants to be a part of some good news.”