A Dog

Spilled anger
wets his mask
until it sags.

What you see underneath
is blue, reddened, splotchy,
and gaping open;

those are big teeth,
and those many, many spots?
Blood, his own.

His hands jumbling
up the scraps
of previous charade (as if

it could be replayed
now that the rage beneath
is so obviously out

in the open) — you know him,
in fact you know him very well.
The mask always has meant next to

nothing.  You were not fooled.
That was no real face visible
on his head

and you always suspected
what the face beneath
would look like.  You

are not disappointed, exactly,
by the revelation.  Yet somehow,
you pity him for this: it seems the monster’s

a dog, a mad dog perhaps but still
a dog.  And dogs?  Dogs
can be put down with very little fuss.