I’ve woken up today
wondering why
I am not a dog, because

if I were a dog
I’d be a good one.
Especially if

I woke up as a dog with 
all my memories
of being human.

Damn, I’d say,
at last a chance 
to bite back or sleep

with a wiggling leg
or enjoy a fine scratch —
and a shortish lifespan

to boot, nothing like
these interminable
days as a man with all the

unnecessary expectations
and frowns from other men.
If I were a dog

I’d be cool with other dogs.
I might be neutered or left
intact — either way

I’d be fine.  I’d figure it out
or more likely would just
be a dog without figuring.

I figure too much as it is.
If I were to wake up a dog
I’d remember that,

and head right back into sleep
with all my legs spread wide
and my tongue out and 

it would be just fine. Sunshine
on my belly, and food in the bowl;
if I were a dog, I’d be just fine.

My spine’s 
snake-curved and achy
after a bad night 
on an old mattress.

If someone saw me
from outside and didn’t
know this, they’d say
my walk to the bathroom
seems so casual, so slow;

don’t be fooled.
My pace has less to do with
urgency and more to do with
inability to hustle right now.

Coffee, then Aleve,
and then to work.
It’s a routine, a job,
one hustle I can maintain
and must maintain
and do maintain

as all the rest of my hustle
falls out of me
onto these hard floors
without so much as 
a bounce.  

I find a small notebook
at a yard sale table.

A sheet falls out, words
at the top: “Bucket List.”

I note check marks in front of
“visit Europe,” “go deep sea fishing,”

“climb Twin Mountain.”  Left unchecked:
“learn to dance the tarantelle,” “complete

master’s degree,” “reconcile
with Marie.” There are others 

as well but I note only the last item,
and the check before it:

“go back and kill
the rest of those bastards.”

I ask the seller
where she got the notebook and

she says it was her father’s,
was in his effects when he died. She’s

come North to handle his estate
and these items today

are the last things to be sold
before she goes home.  

I do not ask if she’d looked through
that book before selling.

I do not ask her name.
I do not ask how her father died.

I tuck the sheet back into 
the notebook and offer her

a price for it as a lot with 
a pair of worn leather belts

and a box of shot glasses
from various tourist spots. 

She agrees
and I take it all home.  

I lay that book in my firepit
and turn it into ash.

Then
I call my father.

We talk for a long time
and make peace between us.

I cannot sleep tonight.
I pour shots into 

Niagara Falls and
Carlsbad Cavern glasses,

wondering who
the bastards were and if

they still walk the earth,
if their children understand

and love them, or are they
childless, or alone now,

writing fearful words
in small notebooks

no one else
is ever supposed to see.