This piece is numerically titled

We came here looking for your mother’s seeing-eye dog. The park is bright and green and not too crowded, and the open spaces seem to swallow sound. There are stores across the street, apartments and the lazy midday city traffic. We thought the dog had perhaps come here. I let you walk ahead to lead the way. I do not feel like being seen. The sun feels distant; its rays are enervated in the resin sky. The shadows beneath the trees seem to glisten. The damn dog had run out of the house. I’d gotten there just before you were back from work and the damn dog bounded out of the house. I went back to my car and drove around and haven’t told you. It’s probably just a matter of time till your father checks his video feed and sees me opening the door. But I am scared of your finding out. There is a slow lava flow bubbling and black, eating away our time. You are asking people if they’ve seen a Dalmatian, and I am still behind you, hiding, trying to call animal control with a phone my thumbs can’t work. You must be bored because you sigh, and you begin to call your friends. You’re at the park, you tell them, Goodale Park, they should come and we’ll go to the bar nearby. I want a rum. You want to get out of the city that bred you. Your mother married a bureaucratic fanatic and wants her seeing-eye dog back. I am wondering why my boots sink into the sod. I must be 12 feet tall if I can’t see the detailed grass from here. Texture seems to have seeped into a gloss that is sticky when I place my hand on the bench. You would like me to sit down beside you. Your cheeks are red and your hair’s pulled back and sweaty round the edges. Your face hangs low from the rest of your head. I wish I could lift you and bring you somewhere only the gulls can see from their beds in the sky. There is a cog turning and churning its way through the park. And the clock on the church tower tolls noon. We should be drunk by now. We are sitting and waiting for your friends. The tolling has not stopped. This bench is very long. It cantilevers over a pond 60 feet down. Impossibly built. The path before us has turned to four-feet thick of dust, and the dust drifts away when the joggers come by, knee-deep in the fluff of our momentary lives. There is a silence humming in my heart. Your hand is sweaty in mine and I cannot understand why I didn’t stay in college and why I still get excited for birthday presents from my parents there are abscesses growing on my eyes. You are staring at me and asking How The Fuck Do We Find It and I don’t want to admit that I can’t get-off in your anus. The tolling has not stopped. You are crying and the doves are crying and the statue of Zeus has broken his leg. I mention your mother’s rottweiler and you look at me while drying your eyes and say no she has a pug.