Rogan Kelly
The recycling truck lurches at the stop sign before the busy street, appears to look both ways, and then sputters off and is gone. Behind the fence, the rescue dog hunts a grackle. My father, standing out by the road, next to the empty green cans, holds a single metal crutch left behind from his offering of renewal. I don't know if it's the prop or this heat, but he looks beaten, weary. His face seems to say, now what? There's an almost involuntary impulse to tuck it under his arm or pitch it at the sky. I watch him, trying to will it from my umbrella-drawn perch, feel compelled to yell out, use the crutch, old man, like some over-invested director from the back of the dark theatre, unconvinced by the true life of it all, only sure of the missed opportunity to stand for something else. Sudden, still, he centers, wielding a baton, a murderous shinty, full of vigor and spite.