The end of July

It's like the dripping tail of a chocolate lab. A lab that swam to shore clutching the stick its master (or owner or whatever you call the ones who choose to live with dogs) had thrown with a go-get-it-boy on the follow-through. The lab always gets it. Fetches, they say. Fetching it's not, shaking the lake from its coat like it always does, eyes fixed on the thrower, the attaboy, the give-it-here. The giving-up brings about a predictable lean and release, but there's a pause to be endured, the suspense stiffening the curve and slowing the wag. Waiting is part of it. That's right. It ends with a sidearm whip and the corresponding whip of the tail as the lab leaps for the always out-of-reach end-over-end.