Distant Cannon

The camping trailers are circling the State Forest, lots of horses on the bridal paths, small kids running between parked cars. The first Saturday of summer. There's a street fair that's closed down Second Street. I know the alleys now, and can skirt around almost anything; so I get to the library fine, do my business there, wander the stacks, smelling books all around me. Kroger is chaos, they're redoing the shelving, my internal map will have to be redrawn, but I find the things I need, despite the confusion. Small new potatoes at the farmer's market and I buy some, not knowing what I'm going to do with them. In the seafood aisle I think about the term 'wild-caught', then, later, about the terms 'organic' and 'free-range', and I'm lucky to get out of town without being questioned. The back way home, all the way up the creek to B's place, where he adds to the pile of reading matter. Life on the creek. Dictated by local weather. I got back home, watching the clouds, before the rolling thunder, stopped at the Diary Bar for a vanilla shake. It's as if I had this timed. I get back home, the bottom of the hill I shift into four-wheel drive, creep up the driveway, looking at flowers. And when I get to the top, the bottom drops out. A gully-washer. I waited for a lull, to get to the door, but was still drenched and dripped like a bird-dog. Strip, standing on a towel by the kitchen sink, dry off, then a fresh change of clothes. I'd left everything in the Jeep, except for what needed attention, put away butter and cheese, lined up four avocados, for their daily feel, to see in what order I would eat them. The thunder, in waves, is like distant cannon. Like listening to the first battle of Bull Run from a lawn chair in DC. As a check on population we let the young men kill each other, you really only need two or three males, so why not waste them, in the interest of science or something? Sleep it off.