poem of the day 06.06.13

gonna buy me a dog

my wife toasts our pints

and then says,

i worry about you if i die first

she’s thirty-six years-old and worries about this

why?

because you don’t talk to anyone but me

with me you talk my ear off

but with everyone else you clam up and sit there

this is true

i’ve never been to a dinner party

and i’m too afraid to knock on the janitor’s door

i worry that you’ll get a dog, she says

and that you’ll talk the poor thing to death

my wife has some beer

i’m basically worried about you

and some poor dog you’ll buy when i’m dead

i won’t buy a dog, i tell her

well, don’t say you’ll be too busy

with your twenty year-old girlfriend

because i’ve seen you around other women

if they aren’t bagging my groceries

there’s nothing between us, i say

i have some beer

you might be right, i tell her

maybe i will buy a dog just in case

i’ll get a german shepherd and name him hunter

that poor dog, my wife says

it could be good

me and hunter drunk walking the neighborhood

after a day with wine and beer

and movies

i’d play him the radio

all the great ones, i tell her

and we can sit there passing the time

listening to the masters

there’d be no need to talk

hell, i’d probably forget the sound

of my own voice, i say

my wife laughs

that animal will be deaf or crazy within in a year

probably

but then i think

i’m not gonna buy me a dog

i won’t have to

because without you, dear

i’ll howl so horribly every night

the dogs will come running to me by the dozens

and together

we’ll yelp sonnets for you

and aim them at the moon.