Woof

Americans

love to play
with the full abandon 
of pugs let loose
in a dog park
under the watchful eyes 
of owners who amuse themselves
by watching lapdogs
pretending they are wolves
while believing they are free

Americans

love riding with our heads out the window
in a big pickup truck
big enough to kill any witch
any fresh storm might drop them on
with a high grill for clearing the streets
and fat wheels for the rough roads
that bounce us around so much
make us so vomit-torn
that we cry for the paving
of as many as we can
so we can ride through the “wilderness”
and pretend we’re the ones driving
into the “frontier”

Americans

love getting home
and trotting around gargantuan kennels
with never enough closet space
in which to keep
songs
land
slang
and all the rest of the loot
we’ve been collecting
for so many years
we can’t see any longer
how stolen it is

Americans

love digging holes
in our backyards
in which to bury bones
we’ll claim we never saw
then digging them up later
to chew on
once no one’s looking 
and the passing years
have turned them
so they taste more like
survivor guilt
than evidence of crime

Americans 

love to wag our tails
whenever we hear “good dog”
right up to the very minute
we get the needle