Stolen

She, on knees scraping pavement and curb,
And he, jerking with sorrowful convulsion
Took my dog. Rather, I gave her away,
But felt pressed I no longer deserved her.
The lines carved jagged beside mouth corners
Sliced off the inside of her cheeks
And threw pain out like confetti.
I stood aloof like the sober one with litter on lapel.

He, though, flat out stole her, twice.
Once by accident as the dog ditched children
And dug nails into macadam with fury and speed
To plunge a life beneath the tire of a municipal snow plow.
Second, when the plowman wept on my shoulder.
He showed my family his dog
Which hangs from keychain without attendant wife.
I could claim near nothing, a supporting role;
A Little John to the minstrel mourners.
My absurd bulldog was gone, theirs.

Undrunk with grief, I rested his head upon my shoulder
Like the good man I am supposed to be.
That’s not who I am. Or not who I think myself to be.
I think of myself as a man who has a dog
And then loses the dog and then cannot bare the pain.
I am not, no more.
I am old, half-a-life down, and fail to avoid
Thoughts of a before dog, a better behaved dog
Whose passing caused greater wrench.
A future dog, different, maybe like the first,
Or perhaps many, clumped together residing in
A culture of dog, and resisting Man.