Walking My Dog Without My Glasses

Walking My Dog Without My Glasses


I depend on my four-legged little boy to navigate the blur
when I’m out walking the neighborhood without my glasses.

I follow the leash—him tugging me off course,
left, then sideways—nose deep in something rich and rude but insistent.

Yesterday, it was a brown squirrel disappearing into leaf-shadow,
a harem of dogs perfumed by musk and mischief,
the wet breath of petrichor rising from a half-hidden stream in the woods.

Today, in a blurrier-than-usual morning, it’s construction stink:
rebar sweat rising from rolled turf, driving him
into something close to holy ecstasy.

I keep my eyes low—
to the black street in front, the sidewalk’s climbing edge to my side—
what I can make out without imagining,
knowing he’s strong enough to pull my hand but not my feet.

White dimpled mounds stack like a misplaced offering—
concrete sacks waiting to become somebody’s living room—
which I first mistook for nests aching for swallows.

For a moment, I was a kid again,
stumbling into a white-and-green heaven,
believing beauty always wears softness.
But hand and paw know better. Nothing yields.

Up ahead, my dog circles a black ring
with something snaky about it,
something resembling a satanic halo—
just a shredded tire, once I get close.

And what I mistook for tangled roots,
then more snakes spilling from the dirt—
snakes so real my dog stepped back, ears tight—
is just plastic edging, slick and stubborn.

Now he’s sniffing turf bundled in thick plastic wrap,
nose twitching for the ghost of something feral—
pine seeds, maybe, before they became crosshatched timbers
pounded into place by men with square shoulders and migrant eyes.

He flinches when they shout,
shrinks further when their hammer rhythm resumes—
the echo of nails driving home,
each tap a command for permanence.

At the center of the block, a house gleams unnaturally.
It was raw pine just days ago.
Now, a stark white shell—sun-reflecting, almost cruel in its polish.
I think it’s a church, but there’s no cross.

My dog hesitates, nose in the gravel and polished river rocks.
Something glints—twisted, coiled, graceful.
Another snake, he thinks.

But I’ve learned the tricks of my own vision,
and dismiss the hope that it’s mangled angel wings.
Still, its carved, suggestive form
makes me linger—something ancient in its silence.

The dog’s chewing it like it’s prey.
Surprised when it doesn’t squeal or squeak.
There’s a crack, then another—bone-like.
I see the jawline. Feel the braiding.
A lug at one end tells me: cable wire. Just that.

We walk a little more, heading home—
him delighting in smells I’ll never name.
And me knowing, with quiet relief,
that my glasses are waiting
on my desk, folded atop the keyboard.

Every step, a small revision—
the world less imagined,
more actual.
Still unfinished. Still real. Still something
I can finally see.