I’m on my way home. In the home stretch, as they say. A mannequin with a push broom mustache appears in my rearview. Its mouth open enough for a golf ball or string of handkerchiefs. The radio tells me that this is the driest September in 20 years. I suppress a sniffle for my plants, the ones still alive. Behind my house is a graveyard gathering dust. In the mirror, the mannequin has disappeared. It’s not unheard of to imagine things in traffic. To spend the equinox in a hammock, wasting my life. Or not breaking the backs of mothers walking a Weimaraner. And there’s the mannequin again with an egg in its mouth.
Nate Logan is the author of Inside the Golden Days of Missing You (Magic Helicopter Press, 2019). He’s editor and publisher of Spooky Girlfriend Press and teaches at Marian University.