The Dog Days of Summer

By Jacob Schepers

and then she launches into a soliloquy on “the dog days of summer” and how it’s such a curious phrase and whether any deeper meaning hides within it and how can “dog” be an adjective, if it even acts as an adjective in the phrase at all, and she warns me to stay on my toes, I kid you not; that’s verbatim: she said it just like that, “you gotta stay on your toes if you wanna make it in this business,” and about this time I’m flapping my arms like an albatross to win the waiter’s attention for another drink or the check or his company or sympathy, and she asks me what’s wrong, and I tell her my appetite defused, and she starts laughing and asks if my stomach is a bomb, and I say, yes, my stomach is a bomb