poem of the day 02.27.15

dog shit

there is dog shit

scattered all over this crooked landscape

a guy looks at me

points down and says, poop shrapnel

before i almost step in a patch

that already has some poor sap’s boot print in it

i say, thanks pal,

and the two of us continue on

in a serpentine around the rest

dog shit is the plague of this neighborhood

there are signs everywhere

telling people to curb their dog

microsoft words docs in bold letters

telling the offending dog owners

WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE

WE KNOW WHAT YOU’VE DONE

threating sonnets claiming to have the police involved

but, still, every morning

new and fresh steaming piles of dog shit

for everyone on the block to walk around

my wife and i once had a dog

back when we were dating

it was coon hound mix

that no amount of training could tame

the dog destroyed pillows and vhs tapes

boxes of tampons and record sleeves

i used to walk the beast in the morning and after work

three long circles around the block

to try and get him to shit

wondering why in the hell i had a dog

as the beast bit at me and its leash

attacked other dogs and finally let out the worst of dung piles

i used to carry the turds in a plastic container

that looked like a shovel

i’d toss the dog shit in bushes or in flower beds

always feeling like i was giving back to the earth

on weekends we’d chain the dog in the backyard

so that we didn’t have to walk him

or clean up shit so early in the morning

we let him run in circles and bark the morning away

shit all over the backyard

while we slept off another friday night at the bar

when i woke up i’d go outside to clean the dog shit

while the coon hound pulled on its chain

and tried to get at me

often there were notes from concerned neighbors

instructing my girlfriend and i

on the proper way to take care of a dog

once one of the notes was in crayon and in a child’s hand

mornings like that i usually tossed the dog shit into the next yard

just to send a message back

then i went back to bed and let the dog sleep between us

we had to dog maybe three months

before we had to give him back to the rescue league

my girlfriend took him back while i sat in the apartment

crying over an animal that i didn’t even like all that much

drinking beer after beer

i felt like such a damned failure

until i finally went out into the back yard

to collect his chain and the few toys we had for him

walking around the yard like a lost man

while the neighbors watched me from their windows

searching for any last piles of dog shit

that i might’ve missed.