Suburban Garnish


At Thanksgiving, the man dragged from the basement the giant plastic bow and somehow hung it on the peak of the house. The house hated it, embarrassed by the cheap bow and lack of finesse with which the man attached it. Houses want to wear siding. They like to be decorated with woodpeckers. When snow falls, it should settle in shingles and dust the roof, but the bow turned it into sleet. And they spot-lit it. The house closed its eyes and tried to sleep through the holidays, but it knew the bow was there knocking on its skull when the wind blew. Across the street inflatable Santas and Elves lay in the yard by day like spent rubbers. In a March rain, the man would yank the bow down, leaving little scraps of it on the nails. The house didn’t mind the scraps; it wasn’t their fault.

Any Way You Slice It


From its counter by the kitchen window, the toaster watched the seasons change but felt none of them, save the extreme humidity of the Midwest. It watched and envied the cranes’ migration, alphabet of the geese, and the occasional hawk diving for a chipmunk. Sometimes the toaster was picked up and decrumbed. Once somebody shook it over the wastebasket: very jarring. Then on the day a pipe burst in the basement and the washer died, there was also a flat tire and a small electrical fire. The angry man wanted a Pop-Tart, forgetting the power was off. He yanked the plug from the wall, took the toaster outside and threw it as far and as high as he could. It was the best moment of the toaster’s life, flying at last, then landing in a knot of spirea.