Kicking Dandelions
One step forward, three steps to the side, into an unlocked door, where you find a table with a glass of water on it. You reach for the water, and it turns into a small cactus. Night falls. Headlights on the side of a half-sunk cruise ship. Everything is half something.
A man stands on a subway platform playing a ukulele with his big toe. A child wails as a rat gnaws on an errant French fry. Water streams down an ad for Hair Club for Men. Life is a contorted dustbin.
You have to open a lock in one minute, but someone gives you sixty-three keys. You have to balance a ladder on an old inkjet printer to get the cat off the roof, but the cat doesn’t want to get off. At times, we are all happy where we are.
Try eating corn on the cob and getting no corn stuck in your teeth. Play hopscotch after three scotches on a Friday morning in the dead of winter in Alaska. Try to catch a watermelon after slathering your arms and hands in butter.
Nothing is quite like the sound of a woodpecker. Peck, peck, peck. Horns honk in unmoving traffic. Jimmy chews his gum in rhythm with the off-center clock in the corner of Math class. The last water on Earth is a kiddie pool.
A woman fills a piñata with travel-sized Dove soaps. Her cousin uses a rotary phone to call McDonald’s. Her friend keeps her fingernail clippings in a change jar with only pennies. Her daughter only likes the banana-flavored Now and Later.
A small dog bites a large cat. A giraffe impregnates a chihuahua. Hail on a sunny day. Saltines with mustard.
You flip a bottle. It lands on its side and shatters. A piece of glass goes down the back of your floppy sock. It scratches you all day until you get home and realize your ankle is bloody. You shrug.
Kicking rocks into a shallow pond. Yelling into a soft pillow. Closing your eyes while looking directly at the sun. Bare feet in a pile of horseshit.
We spend all our days kicking dandelions.
© Jonathan Greene, July 30, 2026
