Spring You Ruthless Bastard..

Winter’s last legs are a wobbling eyesore.
Winter’s last legs are being stuck in an elevator with a couple old magazines,
and maybe a stick of gum.
They are the tube of toothpaste that you squeeze until your veins bulge.
One pancake for two people.
Two people with one shadow.

That dog with the glass eye
that you hate because it hasn’t been put down yet.
And you can already imagine how fondly you’ll talk about him on the steps of the porch after he finally gets hit by the truck that came from his blind side.
With your friends and your beer and the breeze and the sun in your eyes,
squinting and exhaling and deeper than usual.
"He was a damn fine dog," you’ll say. And you wont be lying, probably.
He was a damn fine dog.
He will be a damn fine dog.
But he is a half-blind-dirty-with-cancer-and-constipated son of a bitch. For now.
And it’s frustrating to not be able to say those fond things now because you would like to
but you can’t put someone in past tense that hasn’t passed yet.
Trust me, I’ve tried. It’s rude as can be.

Even if we were to accept the dog, neither of us can figure out why Winter’s last legs (for the moment) refuse to buckle.
Well dogs have no dignity, but dammit, Winter used to. I remember when.
So we sit around the room with real washed out looks on our faces. It’s awfully frustrating to not know a thing like this.

But he knows.
He comes back and tells us that:
He built the chair
He punched him out.
He bound Winter’s hands.
He stood him on the chair.
He tied the rope around the rafters. Taut as hell.
He slipped the noose around poor Winter’s neck.
He left no slack.
He forged the note.
He left him there. (On the tips of his toes)

The room is silent for a moment and I actually let out a sigh without knowing it.
After a moment we both nod and tell him it was a job well done.
He asks us how we had thought to do the thing and we both lie and say that we had dwelt on similar ideas.
But truthfully, I don’t think either of us could ever be so cruel. (Even when given the chance.)
He leaves the room to get a drink and we both stare at the floor like a couple of
soft nonbelievers.

"Good God, he even forged the note," I say.

When he walks back in, the ice is clicking around in his cup, and I can’t help
but think that it sounds a lot like Winter’s last legs must sound right now.
Like the glass eyes of fifty good-as-dead dogs.