would it be in poor taste to send an apology letter
like 30 years later to a dog grooming place out in
the berkshires to some woman i broke up with on
a summer lake in the mountains? she was about 10
years older and was a dog groomer and was about
the best sex ever and even she said it but finally lost
it when the dogs would always jump on top of us after
lovemaking and she’d never say anything and when we
first met said don’t make me ever have to make a decision
between you and my dogs and guess in the long run did not
and was a fine romantic summer and lived in adjacent apartments
and showed up at dusk and always just be in her bathrobe after
coming out the shower as if getting ready and eager for a night
of carnal knowledge and was a nice laid-back part of the berkshires
around revolutionary war graveyards and general stores and inn
where george washington rested his bones and a bowling alley
and a china panda and still had video shops where you’d hang
out to pick up your movies to go with your chinese and frisbee
full of marijuana and lust which instantly turned to love but not
sure how much it was and just wondering would it be in poor
taste to send an apology letter like 30 years later to that dog
grooming place right around that summer lake in the mountains
Joseph Reich is a social worker and displaced New Yorker who lives with his wife and eleven-year-old son up in the high mountains of Vermont. He has been published in a wide variety of eclectic literary journals both here and abroad, and been nominated six times for The Pushcart Prize. He is the author of many books, including A Different Sort Of Distance (Skive Magazine Press, 2010), If I Told You To Jump Off The Brooklyn Bridge (Flutter Press, 2010), Pain Diary: Working Methadone & The Life & Times Of The Man Sawed In Half (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2010), Drugstore Sushi (Thunderclap Press, 2010), Escaping Shangrila (Punkin Press, 2011), The Derivation of Cowboys and Indians (Fomite Press, 2012), The Housing Market: a comfortable place to jump off the end of the world (Fomite Press, 2013), The Hole That Runs Through Utopia (Fomite Press, 2014), Taking The Fifth And Running With It: A Psychological Guide for the Hard of Hearing and Blind (Broadstone Books, 2015), and Connecting the Dots to Shangrila: A Postmodern Cultural History of America (Fomite Press, 2016).