- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
Droste with Drowning Man
The first time we took our dog camping was the first time I’d seen him swim. Because I was always looking for a reason to be noble—because I hadn’t considered who was the stronger swimmer—I ran into the water with all my clothes on. He clawed my face as I tried to drag him in. On shore, my terrified parents told me story after story about people they knew who had died trying to save a dog like that, about how the dog always ended up fine. That became the only story I heard that year: man tries to save dog; man dies; dog doesn’t. It was big on FM radio; it was buried in the pledge of allegiance; it was filling the washing machine beside my dirty shirts. I knew it when the butcher offered me a slice of cold American cheese. I realized the girl on the Borax box was holding a Borax box and there was the same story: man, dog, man, dog. I’d want to tell people how my favorite color was orange, or about how I was about to turn ten, but I’d end up with these other words in my mouth. In some versions, the lake was frozen; in others, it was burning. Near the end, there was no dog, only someone who’d gone all the way after what wasn’t there.
BRYAN THOMAS DALY is a Pushcart-nominated author and artist who lives and works in the Twin Cities. His counterfeit translations of W. H. Auden have appeared in BRUISER, and his original poetry appears as voice-over in the horror film Substrate. On any warm day he walks his cat in the yard for at least twenty minutes.