Things I Didn’t Understand
Traded
for an antique
free-standing,
full-length mirror,
she lives
in a kennel,
her cage,
lined up
with an unfinished section
of privacy fence
so she can see
her family
through the sliding glass door
while swarms of
flies worry her.
She stands
in piles of her
own excrement.
Barks to drown
the sound of her own
loneliness.
At the next house
she attracts suitors.
Her chain
denies her escape.
When she
and the neighbor stud
are stuck together
I judge her,
like my good
Catholic upbringing
Dictates.
I never dwell
on the fates
of those eleven
puppies
nor my own culpability.