for serious every boy she's ever loved has been a dog -- this one trembles beaten,
this one, her un-bobbed doberman, bites the same -- and she has
tried and backed away from fearful guard-dog rottweilers, from over-loyal
junkyard mutts who wear the same musty fur day after day after day and
grow callouses on their joints from sleeping on concrete, and what is he?
too dark to be her great pyrenees, too disjointed to be her saint bernard,
and what is he?

he sits and waits as if upon the nightstand by the window, rolling
cigarettes and rolling cigarettes and watching for her pit-patter, and for
three months he sits and waits with dreams for who she is and who she could
be and what she could potentially mean. like false confidence, his
excitement is displaced: idealized. that is to say, she is NOT.

it is funny to define someone as "not." by "not's" or "have not's" or
"knots," and

he is not her great pyrenees.

he could not even be her bulldog or pit-dog or lap-dog. perhaps he is her
retired grey-hound whippet with a brindled coat, tiger-striped and
inquisitive and with an unintelligible, intelligent face, waiting by the
window and hoping she'll come home and being surprised when she still
does, waiting by the window and hoping she'll never even shows up,
hoping she will sleep in his bed and eventually be engulfed and make him
feel full. he needs this weight in his belly. he needs this steadying keel
between his disproportionate haunches, his cavernous ribs.

12/11/2008

Author's Note: fixed the old one a bit. it's more succint. still not too happy. Apparently I'm on the top-rated list now which makes me both extremely happy and extremely sad. Why for? Because I've never really liked this poem, and my more recent and brand new fancy submissing, "since pitbulls are illegal in dade county" makes me much happier than this one. Still, thanks all.

Posted on 12/11/2008
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