Splitting an Order. Ted Kooser

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      observing his progress through glasses that moments before

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       This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

       To absent friends

      As the Lord liveth, and as thy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And they two went on.

      2 Kings 2:6

      Contents

        Title Page

        Note to the Reader

      1  I

      1  Two Men on an Errand

      2  110th Birthday

      3  Near a Mall

      4  Splitting an Order

      5  An Incident

      6  Bad News

      7  Swinging from Parents

      8  Potatoes

      9  At Arby’s, at Noon

      10  A Meeting after Many Years

      11  The Rollerblader

      12  In a Gift Shop

      13  Changing Drivers

      14  Snapshot

      15  Two

      16  While We Were Passing

      17  Gabardine

      18  The Woman Whose Husband Was Dying

      1  II

      1  Estate Sale

      2  Opossum

      3  A Backyard Fish Pool

      4  A Visitant at Five A.M.

      5  A Jonathan in Spring

      6  Dead Bat

      7  Sundial

      8  Birdhouse

      9  Tree Frog

      10  Lantern

      11  Dead Fly

      12  Garrison, Nebraska

      13  A Mouse in a Trap

      14  A Wasp’s Nest

      15  Tree Removal

      16  Barn Swallows

      17  Zinc Lid

      1  III

      1  At a Kitchen Table

      2  A Morning in Early Spring

      3  Closing the Windows

      4  The Past

      5  Sleep Apnea

      6  First Marriage

      7  Grandfather

      8  Howard

      9  Deep Winter

      10  New Moon

      11  Hands in the Wind

      12  Spanish Lessons

      13  Painting the Barn

      14  Those Summer Evenings

      15  Awakening

      16  A Person of Limited Palette

      1  IV

      1  Small Rooms in Time

      2  Right Hand

        About the Author

        Also by Ted Kooser

        Acknowledgments

        Copyright

        Special Thanks

      Splitting an Order

I

Two Men on an Errand

      The younger, a balloon of a man

      in his sixties with some of the life

      let out of him, sags on the cheap couch

      in the car repair shop’s waiting room.

      Scuffed shoes, white socks, blue trousers,

      a nondescript gray