She groomed a goat once, for a Christmas pageant, and a lion cub for a petting zoo, but the
dog is only half-trimmed and shivering in a crate near a vacuum canister she uses as a make-shift dryer. She is waiting for us to hold him; he has snapped at her, and on the table, does it again. We are shocked, like parents confronted with the sudden delinquency of a model child. Embarrassed. He licks our hands, necks, turns from her as she uses the electric razor to trim his back legs, admonishes him by name. He barks. He's ready to leave but his fur is uneven. She continues, relating how other dogs have bitten her.
Folded garden glove;
in one finger, a bee rests.
Roses need pruning.
YOU ARE READING
Running with the Dog (Atty)
PoetryPerhaps it should read "walking" but that seldom happens. A series of dog poems in many forms: haiku, tanka, cinquain, haibun, pantoum, modern sonnet, sestina, free verse, glosa, and a rhyming poem.
