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The Breakdown Ball

Wendy Johnson

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These days I am obsessed with poop. Poop and rot. Walking the narrow trail that traverses the autumn headlands, I pause to break apart the dry scat of raccoon and grey fox to see what they’ve been dining on. In the garden I know the stellar jays are robbing the raspberries by their loose splatter of red-seeded stool. And there’s no better way to warm up in the morning than by shoveling hot horse manure…These days I am obsessed with poop. Poop and rot. Walking the narrow trail that traverses the autumn headlands, I pause to break apart the dry scat of raccoon and grey fox to see what they’ve been dining on. In the garden I know the stellar jays are robbing the raspberries by their loose splatter of red-seeded stool. And there’s no better way to warm up in the morning than by shoveling hot horse manure into our vintage Apache pickup.

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