The cocker spaniel continues to bark and lunge toward the woman with the wide-brimmed hat and walking stick. It’s the hat and stick—he doesn’t like it when people don’t look like people, the dog’s owner, another woman, apologizes as she pulls on the dog’s leash.
It’s December and months since I passed them on the path at the arboretum, but it’s not hard to imagine them all still there. The woman and the woman and the dog—still grounded as those summer oaks. Still as firm as these pines out the window, bracing and holding their own as snow continues to fall.
And it’s not hard to imagine the snow falling on the woman’s straw hat and on her face under the brim, and snowflakes on the rust-colored fur of the dog, and snow dissolving on the tired, cold hands of the woman as she grips the leash.
Fiction by Lisa Alexander Baron
Image by Adam Strong
Lisa Alexander Baron is the author of four collections of poetry, including While She Poses (Kelsay Books), poems prompted by visual art. She teaches writing and public speaking at Philadelphia-area colleges. Another of her gigs is as a circulation assistant at a public library, where she meets all kinds of people with all kinds of strange and beautiful reading habits.
Backwards Trajectory 