Cul-de-Sac
That old rage for order: how my father drove a square mouthed mower over-and-back, over-and-back, each row of neatly trimmed grass cut just like he told his barber: boy’s short, regular. O pioneer, taming this joke bit of prairie, no bindweed or dog shit on his verdure.
Mother, meanwhile, absolved counters of crumbs, paired two dozen socks to matching mates, hummed some half-remembered Sinatra song as she dusted the porcelain figurines and never-used, quaintly painted China plates. In the antic business of having nice things, the obligation of display: a furnishing. Each squat house in our street’s orb eyed the other, envious of another’s paint job, carport or owner.
Left alone, I built model planes with my torn-pocket parachutes. Rode a blue scooter in dizzying loops of the the fate of drowned cats, a sickly child or rabbit. Gathered up, held head-down in a satchel or bucket. When the hands closed in, I’d make a run for it.
