When my dog wanders off the parkway and into the woods or tall grasses
she often brings back remnants
of dead animals, none of which I can decipher, though I have guesses:
opossum, raccoon, squirrel. Garden variety roadkill.
I once walked into an old country bar:
concrete floor and dark wood paneled walls.
A pool table, and a lot of men seated side-by-side. I knew no one.
I asked the bartender a question, to which he mumbled something
unintelligible—difficult for me to decipher
above the pings of video poker and human conversations.
I nodded as if I understood and then ordered a beer on tap and the Friday evening special:
perch and fries.
When I’m in a work meeting about our learning management system,
I tend to zone out (like all good instructors), cursing the upgrades of technology.
Why more? I ask.
I’m in love with my own inefficiencies.
A young woman who possessed the paper route before me—this back when
I was in middle school—would sometimes not collect payment
if she waited too long to collect. She claimed embarrassment
for asking people for so much. Why then, I asked her, wait so long?
She said that I shouldn’t wait as long as she did.
If there weren’t markings on a street or highway, people would naturally hug
the right side, as opposed to the middle.
Sometimes, I wake up at four a.m.
and drag myself to the couch and lie on my left side
and sleep until seven a.m. or whenever the dog wakes me up.
I obsess over sleep, but not so much that I won’t move locations.
While I’m sleeping, sometimes the dog will nuzzle
her nose and mouth into my neck—which, it’s not lost on me,
is the same nose and mouth that tracks and retrieves
dead animals from our walks through the park. She—the dog—is particularly proud
of each of these finds but will leave it to lie unceremoniously
in the middle of the road, probably where it first died.
Do you enjoy watching birds at dusk? Do you enjoy watching birds at dusk while humidity
swallows you up into its wet mouth?
My neighbor leaves his riding lawn mower in the exact spot
where he stops mowing for the day.
The mower just sits in his yard
like an art installment: red and not unattractive
in the random places where he leaves it: next to a walnut tree or near a retaining wall.
He’s retired, I think. I wonder why he doesn’t just drive it back to the garage.
I have grown accustomed to routine. I don’t think it’s a good thing.
My hearing isn’t great, isn’t terrible, but I don’t like talking
above loud noises—in bars, at concerts, in coffee shops.
My lawnmower doesn’t start. I blame humidity. For everything.
I nap more often now than ever before.
I talk about how much I enjoy naps. Technology can go to hell.
I still enjoy driving. No one reads newspapers anymore.
I guess maybe I read them. Maybe I am no one.
Keith Pilapil Lesmeister is the author of the story collections Ask Me About the Money (Cornerstone 2026), We Could’ve Been Happy Here (MG Press 2017), and Mississippi River Museum (WTAW 2023). His work has received support from the Anderson Center, Iowa Arts Council, and Springboard for the Arts. His fiction has appeared in American Short Fiction, december magazine, Gettysburg Review, New Stories from the Midwest, North American Review, Redivider, Terrain, and elsewhere. He’s a founding editor of Cutleaf, teaches at Northeast Iowa Community College, and is a graduate of the Bennington Writing Seminars.