Amplified Dog

The End

79 The end Usually, we’re warned. The author dons an elegiac tone. The voice begins to roll—deepening the way a pastor’s drone draws resonance from a grave open at his feet. like the last hours of summer vacation, the story’s running out. no wonder my throat tightens, and the letters blur. it’sTime i hear pronouncing Fin— notTime the sneak, dropping a new transparency on me daily, changing me so slowly i forget what’s happening, butTime the bully, jeering “Aw, get old and die!”As the conclusion rushes at me like the ground during a fall, i picture mom waving the day i left for college. i feel linda’s arms the night she moved with her family to maine. i see myself scrounging for one last sand-dollar— burgers eaten, ice chest dumped, waves starting to phosphoresce as dad fires up the blue buick and mom calls, “honey, time to go.” i remember dad’s first transient global amnesia, that cleared in hours, but left black buzzards circling his brain. i mourn the sun squeezing behind the one tree in this parking lot as i close my book to save the last page for later, and waitresses 80 in khaki shorts bounce to their shifts at the elephant bar: eight hours they think will drag on endlessly. ...