Reading Simic

Reading a $6 used copy of Charles Simic's The Unemployed Fortune-Teller: Essays and Memoirs from Unnameable Books in Prospect Heights. The juice bar across the street where we once got an astounding slice of key lime cake is gone.

Excerpt:

My father and his best friend talking about how some people resemble animals. The birdlike wife of so and so, for example. The many breeds of dogs and their human look-alikes. The lady who is a cow. The widow next door who is a tigress, etc.

"And what about me?" says my father's friend.

"You look like a rat, Tony," he replies without a moment's hesitation, after which they just sit drinking without saying another word.