I
Jo said it took her two years to get the garden just right, said the HOA never did nothin'. I ask if she's going to the picnic.
II
More than two thousand, maybe more, submitted applications for the Ridglan Beagles.
III
I know it's Fanny as I hear her sneakers squeak outside my condo. She wakes every morning, spends time with her bible, socks pulled up to her sagging kneecaps.
IV
Jo's succulents are in the back of her bungalow, and I want to ask if she spends time with them. They are so stoic at night, when the path lights them like gargoyles.
V
A woman who adopted a Beagle had disappeared in a four-man home. She said, when I saw the Beagles I knew our family needed one. She envisions taking B on walks alone.
VI
Fanny walks back and forth on the concrete, beside the wall that shields us from the car condos. They will have full bathrooms — to sleep or do blow in. You can't have both.
VII
Terry sits in a wheelchair, wears a diaper. He's got Jo's broom between his legs, to push dirt off the walk. He tracks it inside.
VIII
Another Beagle in Dane County waits, her coat matted and wet.
IX
Fanny doesn't like the HOA people, but she doesn't know how to work them like I do. I bribe them to pull my dead plants, introduce myself.
X
I see Terry's wheelchair outside, sitting by itself. There are Hydrangeas all over the complex, — vain, heartless, apologetic.
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