Hugh Behm-Steinberg

Description is one thing among a number of things

Typing quietly in bed, my wife sleeping next to me. The various people sounds on my street, the sweepers and garbage pickup. The way my throat feels, the soreness of a cold coming on. The dogs all the time, some of them bundled up for the weather and at least one of them is not happy about anything. He complains loudly to the nearest dog.

Somewhere, deep underground, there is a vein of gold that no one knows about. Somewhere in the hills nearby wild pigs go where they want. In the dark, someone carries a lantern and another person stays in the dark. My wife is listening to rain on her headphones and it unnerves me, perhaps it is raining. Somewhere it is raining.

I can feel the start of a wheeze in my chest, a soft whistle when I breathe. I have my knees bent so my computer is on my lap. My left foot is turned toward my right, my big toe touches my smaller toes. I am thinking about a language that does not have separate words for fingers and toes, I put my hand on my wife’s arm as she rolls over to sleep again with her headphones.

The nearest dog is an Afghan hound. The nearest dogs are a pair of Weimaraners. The nearest dog is a mutt, still a puppy, still happy to leap into the chests of strangers. The nearest dog, now, doesn’t want to go back inside but she has to go back inside anyway: up the stairs she goes, dragging her feet. She knows where the rain is. She doesn’t care about the gold buried so deeply beneath her. She smells my cold, but it’s just one thing in a number of things.