riley dog

This is how it started: a man needed work.
He hadn’t had a job for weeks so he took
the civil service exam and got a position
at the Detroit zoo, way down the totem pole,

right at the bottom. He wore blue coveralls
and a blue cap. He looked like a cop without
the badges and hoopla. His work was to feed
the zebras, feed the ibex, feed the bears.

The bears’ cage looked like a stone cave
without a roof, but it had a ledge six feet
off the ground. His boss said: Sometimes
a bear likes to get up on the ledge and jump

on the keeper giving him food. Oh, it hasn’t
happened much, but it’s happened. So keep
an eye out. The next morning the man fed
the zebra; he fed the ibex, but when he came

to the bears’ cage, he paused. No bears in sight.
Where were they hiding? The man entered
the cage and stared at the food trough. Only
ten steps to go. Weren’t a few of those furry

ruffians bound to be sneaking around? He took
a step toward the trough and heard a noise; maybe
a bear, maybe a bus on Woodward Avenue.
The man’s legs weighed fifty pounds. He thought

of his wife and six kids. He wasn’t very big.
He knew what bears could do to little guys
like him. They would chew up even his buttons.
Time passed. People paused to watch the keeper

frozen like a statue. As shows go, it was pretty dull.
The bears were off gallivanting someplace else.
Could the man run to the trough, dump the food
and run back? Sure he could, but he was a thinker,

that was his problem. He had a gift for picturing nasty
scenarios. As in a movie, he could see the bear
leap from the ledge. That would be just the start.
Back behind a rock a bear woke up. It was past

feeding time. He was hungry. He took a peek
over the ledge. No food. He reared up on his hind
legs and roared like mean grizzlies on TV.
Hadn’t the man known this would take place?

He dropped the pail and ran to the bus stop. Don’t
even ask if he shut the gate, that’s another story.
Close call, he told himself. It wasn’t exactly courage,
but it would do the trick. After all, he was alive,

but out of work. He began to tell people the story
of how he’d saved himself from a bear. With each
telling the bear grew bigger, then it was two bears,
then three. His excuse became his new work.

The man showed a scar on his arm from an old
bicycle accident. This was where a bear clawed him.
The man believed every word he said. Although
modest about being a hero, he projected an aura

of quiet strength. He developed a convincing vibrato.
His kids looked up to him. His wife baked him
an apple pie. Dinner invitations proliferated.
These reversals of bad luck that fate drops

on the seemingly unworthy, what does it matter
what really took place? The man’s stories
formed a path to help him through future dark—
lies, lies, the lullabies to help us sleep at night.

Bhopal is a calamity without end. On 3 December 1984, clouds of poison leaking from a Union Carbide pesticides plant brought death to thousands in this central Indian city. Today, fully a quarter of a century later, victims of this, the world's worst industrial disaster, are still being born.

Here, in neighbourhoods where people depend on water contaminated by chemicals leaking from the abandoned factory and to mothers exposed to the toxic gas as children, brain damaged and malformed babies are 10 times more common than the national average. Doctors at Bhopal's Sambhavna Clinic say that as many as one in 25 babies are still born with defects and developmental problems such as a smaller head, webbed feet and low birth weight.

Those who were mere children when the fumes overcame this city of a million are suffering, too. Painful skin lesions, stomach problems and raw, itchy eyes are common complaints among thousands of families, some of whom moved to Bhopal only in recent years. And the clinic says that Bhopal now has some of India's highest rates of gall bladder and oesophageal cancers, TB, anaemia and thyroid abnormalities. Young girls start menstruating much later than normal and experience painful gynaecological problems, which often lead to hysterectomies at a young age.

These problems, say campaigners such as the Bhopal Medical Appeal (BMA), are linked to the continuing pollution of parts of the local water supply by chemicals such as chloroform and carbon tetrachloride. Families have no choice but to use ground water for washing, cooking and drinking when safe sources run dry, according to new research that will be published by the BMA on Tuesday. The study found higher levels of several carcinogenic chemicals in water sources this year compared with last year – strongly suggesting that future generations will be poisoned unless the area is decontaminated. This flies in the face of recent claims by state and national ministers that the site is clean.

Meanwhile, the legal fight for the chief executive of Union Carbide to be tried for his company's alleged negligence is no nearer success than it was 25 years ago. Amnesty International will this week call on the Indian government and Dow Chemicals, which bought Union Carbide in 2001, to take "urgent and decisive action" to ensure that the accused appear in court – more than 20 years after arrest warrants were first issued. Dow continues to deny any responsibility for the criminal case.

“When will they return our lost marbles?”

More neighbors: Penelope has finished her web. She is cutting the threads, weaving in the loose ends. A shroud all along. She is one of those little old ladies dressed in black, in widow’s weeds, who elbow me out of the way in the checkout line at the supermarket. I must learn how better to take up space.

Laertes is already planted in the ground. His heart lies there, full of seeds, ready to break open like a grenade, like a pomegranate. They break them here for luck and for new beginnings. Pomegranates, I mean, not hearts.

Telemachus runs a moving company. His truck is labeled: Metaphors.

One word means both weather and time.