[K9-Lovers]

Guarding the Dogs

The guard dogs in the car lot across the street
sleep by day and bark by night
and moan, with you alone to hear them
like a human moon. You hear them
and think you were born for this burden.
Not your husband, asleep and sound and sure,
not your own dog, this other,
asleep at your feet with one ear flapped out,
pink and whorled and useless
as the opposite of a rose,
not it, not your neighbor Maria,
or her husband, Ed, or even Eddie junior,
so who else, who,
will lie here and listen?

At night their fence is the perimeter
of a giant murky tank
and the dogs are piranha
and you know if you dangle an arm in
to fret the invisible plane of water
what not to expect to find
when you pull it out again.

You hate that they bark but also you worry
that they starve and are beaten
that they need water,
that they will accidentally
lap up antifreeze and die from it
and so you decide one day
to speak to their vicious owner.

This makes your husband mad.
He thinks he knows the scenario
you've just set in motion
even as you fix your lipstick
even as you and your rehearsed speech
rush out like two oversized characters
through an undersized doorway.
And he's right, long before
you come heavily home
having been told, quite clearly
that this is business
and loving the dogs
is none of yours.

-- Kathleen Sheeder

[Jhooman]

Thank you for that amazing poem.