The Snail Painter
my back yard is small and full of snails. and angry hummingbirds. there is a family of sparrows, too. i usually type/write out here. the children in an adjacent yard chant creepy songs between asking their parents if they want lemonade even when it’s raining, which it very often is. the parents are always chopping things– marionberry briars and roses, things with thorns and fruit and flowers. i try so hard not to step on the snails. if i sit long enough, they crawl on to my shoes and i don’t notice. when friends come over we tip-toe around trying sooo hard not to step on them, but we always eventually do– that awful crunch. we are always apologizing. beneath the briars is a snail factory where one snail refuses to work because all he wants to do is draw snail trails all day, and the others disapprove.
