I don’t kill things, he tells her,
Not even fish.
I catch them; tell them they’re pretty
and throw them back in the river.
Times before, at the Economy Inn,
the door would finally shut.
She watched from the motel window
the cars groan by, on a terrible unfamiliar road,
cars that would wrap around trees
and break the lives inside open.
Gleaming packages of flesh
and muscle cut to fit your plate.
Chewed the gutters off my house.
I finally had to let him go.
He was so happy, when the strangers
took him away.
Thought he was going for a walk.
Stupid dog.
A Mormon girl lives under my basement floor,
her black hair ripples in the underground
stream at the bottom of the basin.
I don’t make promises
and can you please, leave?
I have to get up early in the
morning.
Bad dog.
Botched suicide.
They still had to drag the river.
(First Published in "Wicked Alice")
No comments:
Post a Comment