The whole time I’m in the downtown post office looking up two zip codes, the little girl in the ponytail is crying. It fills the cavernous space, as a dirge. It is a soft, insistent, unmodulated, unmodified wail. It does not have any desired effect. Her mother doesn’t do anything differently. The person it affects is me (and who knows how many others, actually). I tense up and tear the corner of the thin page of H’s I’m looking on. I’m aware of how lost I’d be without this directory and it’s the only one, and if the name I was looking up was one of the torn out ones, I would be very inconvenienced. So I look for scotch tape. I go to a window and am told the public is not allowed to receive tape. So I ask for some of the clerk’s tape, because it’s for post office business. The clerk says she isn’t given any, so that she won’t be tempted to give it to the public. The innocent customer she just waited on bought some tape from her and she asks him to give me a piece. He’s not fluent in English, and bewildered, gives me some tape. I mend the book. The wail has not been interrupted. I forget to mail the letters for which I just found the zip codes.



The cabins are four in number and the one off on its own is the best.
It has a sloping roof over a porch, very graceful.
The owners of the other three are lovely people.
They circle amongst their buildings doing chores.
A fifth tiny cabin of sorts, that once was a privy,
has been converted into a garden-tool shed.
On its wall neatly hang a long-handled shovel, a small digger,
a rake, a fork, what have you.


 

Anderson’s in Pine River
has the best carrot cake
little cucumbers from a local’s garden
     look just like lemons

I wondered what to have with beef brisket;
I was thinking milk but a six
pack of beer would be better for the celebration, with flags,
firecrackers, potato salad and pies, no time for a diet
but there was an uproar they wanted their Fourth of July Mountain Dew
and I got it for them before I had to pack

up for the road trip home. With leftover six-packs
pies, salads, and beef in tow, I would need a brisk
walk after the trip; the early morning dew
that would be on the grass about six
when I got home would be the start of my new diet—
that, and vigorous gardening in my flag

bed, otherwise called an iris bed, would keep me busy till I flagged.
Or, I could send all the food to others in pack-
ages and not eat it all myself, because I like a healthy diet
and I feel that combined with brisk
walks, and rising early, at least by six,
that’s the healthy road, out walking in the morning dew

not staying up late drinking, compounding the damage later with Mountain Dew
for a hangover! Red alert, get out the flags
stop this person, my innocent self, from gaining six
pounds at one Fourth of July picnic, because I was too lazy to pack
up leftovers and give them to thinner people who drink brisk
Lipton tea in the summer, low calorie, and don’t need to diet.

Beer, beef, mayonnaisey salads, and pie are not very dietetic;
especially not when washed down with Mountain Dew
better to get low-fat crackers and keep them in a brisker
for a celebration on the day everyone gets out flags.
Foods are less likely eaten between meals if left in unopened packaging.
You can gain a lot of weight, up to six

pounds from snacking, and still lose it again quickly; more than six
and you have to resign yourself to going on a diet.
It’s really better to eat lightly at meals and not pack
a lot in at one time. Of course it’s difficult to do
but when you bring it off you feel like bringing out the flags
and celebrating!  and going for  a walk later, to the store to buy brisket.

You take a risk of gaining a good six
pounds and then you’ll flag if you don’t diet.
With all you have to do, think about a low-cal snack pack!