1. Dog is God backwards. Nevertheless, the two communicate on a daily basis. God says to Dog that she’s putting together an encyclical of prose poems, and Dog asks, “what’s an encyclical?” God tells Dog that that she doesn’t know what one is either, but that the word encyclical sounds high and mighty. Dog thinks, bones, they sound good when they are gnawed upon. God gives the Dog a bone, so as to distract her, and returns to sorting through prose poems, of which there are hundreds. It seems like everyone wants to be included in an encyclical, even though it’s really an anthology.

God’s greatest claim to fame is having created heaven and earth in seven days. Now her second greatest claim to fame is going to be having selected a prose poem a day for seven days and then compiled an encyclical, one with a dark blue cover.

God knows that those who have their poems accepted will be elated. Conversely, those who have their poems rejected will be dismayed. There is nothing she or Dog can do about this. Dog, who like God, knows all, abandons her bone, rolls on her back, and thinks, there are as many prose poems out there as there are stars.

2. I tell you that I’ve put my father in a jar and screwed the lid down tight, but you don’t believe me. You’ve never believed anything that I’ve told you. I pull the jar out of my backpack, relieved to discover that the glass didn’t break. It would be hard for my father to escape because he’s now a still life, a photo taken when I was one and he was twenty-three. Goodness, I am also in the jar, on the inside, looking out.

3. I walk five steps, pull a rock out of my left pocket, and put it in my right pocket. I then pull it out of my right pocket and pull it out of my left pocket. I slow down and continue in this fashion, knowing that the weight of the rock is slowing me down. I consider dropping the rock mid-stride fear I might then float away.

4. You write in the second person because this distances you from the first person, a rather loud, obnoxious, self-absorbed individual with few redeeming social graces and even fewer redeeming qualities. You are the opposite. You are quiet, thoughtful, kind, and extremely considerate individual with many redeeming social graces and even more redeeming qualities.

Your reflection in the mirror is that of the first person, which is your polar opposite. You open the cabinet door and open your mouth wide. Like you, the first person is also missing three teeth, two incisors and one canine tooth.

You examine the contents of the cabinet. You expect to find internal organs, heart, lungs, liver, spleen included. Instead, the cabinet contains toothpaste, dental floss, and a toothbrush. You close the cabinet door and wave goodbye to the first person. She waves back. Although opposites, you part on good terms.

5. Truth is stranger than fiction. I know this cliché to be true, so I have given it a place in my lexicon, where resides in the glove compartment along with other clichés such as, “A stitch in time saves nine,” “a penny saved is a penny earned,” and “he who falls in eyeglass vat makes spectacle of himself.”

I root around in the glove compartment, in search of needles, loose change, and sunglasses.

These are all objects that I hope to find, and in this way I will be able to preserve the cliché status quo.

Is truth stranger than fiction? Is a penny saved a penny earned? Does he who fall in eyeglass vat really make a spectacle of himself? I do not know when I begin my trip. And I do not know when I end it.

6. You enter the roundabout cautiously, veering into the inside lane, hand extended, hoping to grab the golden ring. You miss and go around again, and again, and again. The other drivers go around you, then exit, leaving you to reminisce about being a kid and going with your father to Seabreeze Amusement Park, in upstate New York. You were soon astride a magnificent carousel steed, one with flaring nostrils and a windswept mane. You missed the golden ring and went around again, and again, and again.

You didn’t get the golden ring then and you won’t get it now. You hear a distant siren, which is that of a police car, drawing closer, and closer, and closer. You see lights, blue and yellow, and red, festive then and festive now.

You are glad to be able to make the comparison between then and now. Otherwise, you think, life would be quite dull. You pat the dashboard of your car as if it were that of the carousel horse and tell her that everything will be just fine.

7. On the seventh day God created Dog in her own image and likeness. Dog then hung out by God’s fire, warming herself and flinching bones and scraps from the discard pile. In time, God domesticated Dog so that she became an honest companion and loyal friend. Ahh, but domesticated Dog knew something that God did not, and this was that her selected prose poems were from the same writer. It was obvious, at least to Dog. They all had the same voice, same surreal quality, same punctuation and grammar errors. Dog, teeth chattering and tail spinning, mentioned this God, who then was no longer all knowing.

On the eighth day, God and Dog rested.

Next: 26. 1/26/23: Every Which way But Sideways