I buy what’s advertised as the strongest legal magnet.

The wait for its arrival is worse than crucifixion. So hard to pay attention. So hard to play along and pretend anything means anything in my lame duck pre-magnet life.

So excited when it arrives three weeks later that I unbox it right there in my yard, in front of my mailman, in my socks, in the stunted winter grass. Not the traditional horseshoe shape, oh no—my unboxed magnet is an electric blue brick. The side of the mail truck bulges its way. The bulge’s metal tip raisins down to a nipple.

“You put a tit on the side of my ride,” my mailman says while advancing crotch-first, tugged along by his cowboy belt buckle. 

My all-powerful magnet, overruling other magnets. My magnet that can magnetize whatever. 

Like these ten thousand ladybugs I’m buying right now from a gardening website, right now and dick-to-dick with my mailman.