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The Dog Ouroboros
What is it about poets and dogs?
I hate dogs, and even more, I hate poems
about dogs. I’m with Fields (W.C.), I never
want to be in a poem with a child or a dog.
Dogs are pack animals, and worse, they
cravenly accept their place in the pack.
I’m a cat person, solitary, nocturnal,
predatory. When my kids said they had
to have a dog, I said no. Kids are bad
enough (see Fields, above), but dogs?
Invite them into your home, and the already
unmanageable chaos of family life gets
doubled, tripled! Who walks the dog?
Who feeds it? Who gives the damned
thing its water? Oh, the kids will swear
on an imaginary stack of Bibles -
“We will. We will!” Don’t believe them,
they’re liars, the little shits. It’s mom,
or more likely dad, who walks the dog,
baggie in hand, picking up the poo.
That’s why I hate it when the dog picks
me to be nice to. Growling angrily
when I enter the door, I accept that,
I understand it. This is his turf, and I
don’t belong here. Even a coyote
howls when it’s time to feed him—
that’s survival, and I understand,
even with the ringing in my ears!
But when he crawled onto my lap
this morning—I wasn’t doing anything,
just watching English football
in the darkest hours of the morning,
nothing to invite him—
but there he sat, fetal coiled,
warm and furry, waiting to be petted,
this hapless, unwanted pet, rescued
from the mean streets of rural
California, rough hued, grimly proprietary
of his pack, I mean his family—I mean
my family. It was cold. That’s my excuse
and I’m sticking with it. Better a dog
as lap warmer than turning on the
furnace and widening my carbon
footprint, already triple-E. Dumb
animal, that’ll sit on any lap,
waiting for a caress, the way
the dumb land waits for rain. |
