The Strep is Upon Us

There’s no such thing as double-knots and thrombosis, or shoes with colic. These are images of someone else, a person with too-tight shoes and hobnailed feet. I regret to inform you that the strep is upon us and accounts for much nausea and poor stitching. Poor mama aside, these are things that tighten my throat, round the collar and up into the shoehorn of my breastplate, a double-knotted ascot that cinches and nips. Grandma stove the Crown Royal bag in the closet beneath a brigand of shoes and leggings. For safe keeping, she said, but we suspected it was to keep grandpapa from stealing pages of the Bible for roll-your-owns and toothpicks.