Short,
always in his mustache
and his union truck driving cap
with a Beavis and Butthead button
on one side and a
White Sox button on the other
He frequently wore a Harvard t-shirt
when doing yard work
a hole by his belly button
and sweat stains under his arms
I walked by with my daughter and said
Hey whatcha doing?
I’m feeding this baby squirrel
its Mom fell outta the tree here
…kinda like a squirrel suicide
I knew he loved animals
I’d seen him feed the squirrels peanuts
watching from my couch across the street
I’d also seen the Humane Society magnets
on his fridge when it was his turn for beer
I don’t know how to get him to drink milk
he said as he slowly set a bowl in front of it
Didja try a dropper?
Naw, ya think that’d work?
Better than a dead baby squirrel
Yeah, you gotta point there, he said
Say, I said walking away,
Do you think you fed the ma’ too many peanuts
ya know, so she wasn’t able to jump,
like she should,
from one branch to the other?
Naw, naw, it must’ve been
the storm or something, he said
and then made a sucking sound with his mouth
and shoved the bowl of cow’s milk
toward the baby squirrel
Jason Fisk's first chapbook, The Sagging: Spirits and Skin, will be available from Propaganda Press in late May. He currently lives in Chicagoland with his wife, two children, and two dogs. He tries to find time to write between changing diapers and cleaning up dog poo.
Photograph by Adam Lawrence.
"I'm Keith Hernandez" is a street art, graffiti, and film project by Rob Perri.
Man Like You" is taken from the forthcoming release Wooden Arms by Montreal based troubadour Patrick Watson.
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