olive

she always stands willingly. her instincts tell her "cheeeeeeeeeeze!" and i go, "no, tiny." the wind knocked these roses out of her hands (and how did we stumble onto a bouquet of roses on a bench anyway?). she was shivering, so she humored me, and then i threw each stem into the water, one at a time. we had missed tuesday's usual 'story time' so we did it there instead. always me making up words to the songs to see if she even knows the words which of course she does and my substitute (i call them better) lyrics always infuriate her. "NO!" and i just learned the simplest way to nill a "NO!" is to yell "NO!" right back...so one by one we threw flowers into the muddy, grey-green atlantic...singing: one for my master / one for my dane / and one for tiny, who lives down the lane...

the fishermen could give a shit, about symbolism, as they stand there, being symbols.