About Me



One night it went like this:



I awoke on the couch. It was in the extreme early A.M. The other creatures in the house were elsewhere and asleep. I exited for a cigarette at the back of the car port facing the newly snow-covered back yard, and the chain link fence, and the high, pine-covered berm with the road beyond. The sky was mucid pink and way too bright for that hour, developmentally disabled dusk, warped-looking as the sentiment.



I thought about the possibility of a distant nuclear explosion and began to feel slightly, if somewhat ironically, terrified.



The cigarette tasted great.



*



My font of ambition is at a defecit.



My black German Shepherd is gnawing at the coffee table.



The coffee table is a hand-me-down procurement,

slightly younger than me.



The dog is doing a number on it with his teeth right now.



I snap my fingers at him and he pauses.



If he was a man, I'd give him a beer right now,

to fucking placate him



But he ain't a man



I got a dog drunk once on a roof top in Manhattan,



(it was a careless thing, I had my beer on the ground and just let

Fido drink it)



and before long the dog was reeling sideways walking drunk



and the kid who owned him scooped it up and was cradling it like a baby



all, OH, My GOD, MY DOG IS DRUNK



I didn't think too much of it at the time

but I've felt plenty shitty about it since



although, in fairness,

homeboy shouldn't have been letting his fucking dog

run around unsupervised at

the roof top drinking party



*



I could probably call these lines something way more apropos than About Me

But I'll let it stand



it's



the way I am

Grace of God



Coyote in the breakdown lane

furled out sideward



Incisors bared

in the deep concentration

of death



Why did you leave your brothers

to range along this shallow asphalt?



What made you stray

from the reassuring pack?



Was it this long winter's brief overnight thaw?

Did some smaller creature lead you here?

Hunger or insanity?



Varmint dog



Why do I feel so akin?