Maple Bacon is the name
of a one hundred thirty pound pitbull
who lives upstairs.

She is six years old and only ever says
“woof” — exactly that. You could
spell it. Just “woof.”

You might be forgiven for being
terrified of her. Think again —
she likes to come up to your leg

and lean on it, her tail slowly thumping
the air. Never speaks. Just thumps
and leans till you fall over,

then — what? You have never fallen over.
You imagine she licks your face. You imagine
she gets right in there

and licks you clean of a tangle
of red threads you’ve got up in there,
behind your face. This one

leads a curly track to picturing
what it will be like to be dead, or
at least gone. That sad one is tied to it,

and that sad one, and that really sad one;
they all lead sadly back into one another.
And Maple Bacon? She doesn’t care

with her white spots and her brown patches
and six years of fat and muscle and bone
covering every inch of her.

You like to call yourself a complicated man.
Maple doesn’t see you that way.
She licks, she thumps, she goes on her way.

You bore her after a bit. She goes
to the window and watches for other people,
ignores their tangled minds. “Woof.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
onward,
T