Today I saw an old black woman walking a yellow duck on a leash. She had snow white hair and a crookedy back and the little fat duck just waddled right along behind her, happy as can be. Or maybe it was her handbag in a pull-behind cart. They look so much alike, you know. 



    

Do you know why cows have such skinny legs?

So they don't get stuck in the mud. 

It's like poking a toothpick into a cake. 

Or something. 

 

"Whatcha looking for Pete?" 

Pete's as tall as Pete can get, standing with his paws on the second shelf of my tool rack, his nose searching the edge of the third. 

"Nothing," he says, and comes down to curl on the floor, as if nothing was indeed the case.

"What does a Nothing look like?" I ask, after he's settled. 

Pete looks up at me, then away, then up and then away again. 

"A cat," he says. 

"Mostly."  

Pete was burying dog biscuits today. Pete's little still, he doesn't know.

“How can you stand it?” they ask, “It’s so quiet. There’s no one to talk to.”

But in the morning the crickets come to chat, at lunch the cows, in the afternoon the swallows and all day long the Friendly Butterflies. It’s a wonder, really, I get anything done at all. 

   

I got lost. Sorry. 

We're dog spotting, Bobo and me. 

I'm up by three and he asks for the window to be rolled down.

"It's too hot," I say. "Besides, that's cheating." (His nose, you know.) 

Bobo sighs. He leans heavily against the unopened window and stares down at the floorboard. 

Two lawns pass in silence, three.

"It's not cheating," he finally says,quietly. "I'm not a cheater."

We pass another empty lawn. 

"I know you're not buddy," I say, and roll his window down. "Just a crack. Okay?" 

"Okay." 

"Okay."