(excerpted from The Tenderness of Memory, Plain View Press, 1994 with permission of the author)
What does it matter
that a man in a blue truck,
old, rusted, and dented,
pulls off the side of the road,
yanks his dog out of the car
where it's sat next to him
like some loyal, good-time gal
who can never get enough
but always gets too much,
then gets dumped
for maybe having too much heart-
or not quite enough manners,
not knowing
she has this annoying habit,
see, like laughing too loud?
So what does it matter
that the dog cowers in the ditch
and won't leave
and makes the man take off
his belt and beat her
a little
until the bitch slinks away
in the snow, already sniffing
for home scent, confused,
as the man swerves off
and doesn't look back?
