<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div dir="auto" style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The News</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">The big country beat the little country up<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">like a schoolyard bully,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">so an even bigger country stepped in<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and knocked it on its ass to make it nice,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">which reminds me of my Uncle Bob’s<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">philosophy of parenting.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">It’s August, I’m sitting on the porch swing,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">touching the sores inside my mouth<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">with the tip of my tongue, watching the sun<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">go down in the west like a sinking ship,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">from which a flood of stick orange bleeds out.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">It’s the hour of meatloaf perfume emanating from the houses.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">It’s the season of Little League practice<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and atonal high school band rehearsals.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You can’t buy a beach umbrella in the stores till next year.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The summer beauty pageants are all over,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and no one I know won the swimsuit competition.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">This year illness just flirted with me,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">picking me up and putting me down<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">like a cat with a ball of yarn,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">so I walked among the living like a tourist,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and I wore my health uneasily, like a borrowed shirt,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">knowing I would probably have to give it back.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">There are the terrible things that happen to you<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">and the terrible things that you yourself make happen,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">like Frank, who gave his favorite niece<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">a little red sports car<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">for her to smash her life to pieces in.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">And the girl on the radio sings,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You know what I’m talking about. Bawhoop, awhoop.</em></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">This year it seems like everyone is getting tattoos—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Great White sharks and Chinese characters,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">hummingbirds and musical notes—<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">but the only tattoo I would want to get<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">is of a fist and a rose.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">But I can’t tell how they will fit together on my shoulder.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">If the rose is inside the fist, it will be crushed or hidden;<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">if the fist is closed, as a fist by definition is,<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">it cannot reach out to the rose.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 26px; padding: 0px; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif;" class="">Yet the only tattoo I want this year<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">is of a fist and rose, together.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Fist, that helps you survive.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Rose, without which<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">you have no reason to live.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Tony Hoagland</div></div></body></html>