Buy Buffalo

The last item on George’s to-do list. On his fridge is a photo of buffalo knee-deep in grass at the edge of a watering hole. We find stale cookies in the cookie jar. Toothbreakers, but homemade, and so we eat them and cry with each bite. With Merle Haggard on the turntable, we drink the port (oh God: figs, truffles, then smoke). The sun disappears and returns, disappears and returns. Each of us wants to look out our kitchen window and see something—a still-wild bison, a rare woodpecker, a 14-point buck, an old man puttering in the tomatoes.

Photo credit: David Lenker