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Walking Dogs in an Illinoisan Fall by David Rawson
We used to walk local shelter dogs in the fall. One of them had to stop every few yards to pee. We didn’t mind, & neither did the other dogs. We were all in this together, six weeks before the frost. We grew tired of collecting, of eating ramen, of presences we felt in our alone moments. We knew that despite the smell of the paper factory from an adjacent town, despite how many people had been shot under the world’s largest ketchup bottle, Southern Illinoisan fall felt so right, & we knew we had the best leaves. Then we had the best exits. Flutter & surge are cousins. Our steps felt so permanent. We could see in front of us. Looking back, we could see all the way to the trains. I don’t want to remember famous battles. I don’t want to name the parts of a crossroad flower. I want to memorize the sound of every train, to know it miles before it knows I’m waiting. I want to howl, but only once the dogs begin to howl.
David Rawson is the fiction editor for South Broadway Ghost Society and is the author of Proximity and A Jellyfish for Every Name (ELJ Editions).
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JULY 4, 2019
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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE