by JS Gilbert
I gave my dog a carrot.
She nosed it into the
ground, into the grass
and walked away, having
reached the end of some
dog-algorithm that tells
her a carrot is worth
saving, grass for safe-
keeping, and that I will
always wait to watch,
with two hands and a
face she’s allowed to lick.
Have you,
of a morning,
been running,
when two mailboxes,
black, at the top of a rise,
align, and,
from the corner of your eye,
(if you squint)
nearly plausibly resemble a
tight-wound dog,
coiled and wagging,
anxious to bound and
crash with love,
lick the lonely from your face?
Yeah.
Me either.
I screamed
when I first saw him,
a bounding black cloud
thundering toward my horizon:
a boy looking for a friend.
He stayed with us
until that day
I had to stack the shelves and sweep the floors,
direct customers to the canned
whole chickens in aisle five
while They did whatever it is They do
to friends who once escaped the yard
to find
me at school during recess and
the principal let me walk him home but
who can’t walk anywhere anymore.
So, I get it.
But when my son’s eyes are red-rimmed and
welling with rage at yet one more
failure / betrayal / Talk
with a father trying too hard
because
he knows what’s coming demands more than
paper-or-plastic or expired milk or stray carts and
his son bears the brunt of that fear until
their ties twist taut and love becomes
a strained and brittle mask,
please forgive my snicker at your dog-parent sticker.
