artwork: ralph murre
Good Dog
by
Robert Nordstrom
My dog’s a liar and she isn’t very good at it.
Chin
resting on her paws, she looks up at me
with
her cartoon-cute eyes as if to say — Who
me?
I have no idea what
happened to the cracker.
But
I’m not falling for her mendacious ways.
The
soup cracker on the table was there
when
I left the room and gone
when
I returned. She has no alibi,
no
sentient ravenous being to blame
so
we lapse into a meltdown stare down,
which
I know I’ll win because she,
like
her peers, can’t bear confrontation
unless
prepared to do something about it—
and
she isn’t.
I
step outside and light a cigarette.
This
morning I told my wife I had quit
for
good. Looked her dead
in
the eyes and said — that’s it.
She
smiled sweetly and gave me
a
patronizing pat on the shoulder.
I
flip my butt deep into the ferns
and
go back inside. Dog lies
in
the same spot, cracker
on
the floor under the table
not
two feet from her quivering nose.
Shameless,
I pat her head,
Good dog.
~
first published in Rosebud
