Sleeping Dogs

Once the dogs ran away with the dogs;
hot dogs, that it, fresh’n from the grill
on a platter, cooling down but y'all know
dogs go by smell, and throw caution
to the wind about food being darn hot,
so I don’t know if’n they burned their
mouths of not, still they got all those
wieners suppose’n for us,

and so we left with Granny’s potato
salad and baked beans, good enough,
yet them’n two dogs, Willow and Brutus,
who done gorged on Oscar Mayer Dogs,
and then the fireworks all went sideways;
we had to duck, like’n we were Army men
in the hills outside of Saigon, winter 1951
but no matter, we just wiped mustard off’n
cheeks and let those moans of our stomachs
add effects to the whistling whirr of incoming,

of all the smoke and bang-boom crack-the-sky
slap dang-it onslaught, while’n there was a big
grassy field (poop-filled as always as them
geese are still around) for all them’n fired
wee rockets, one still-smoldering spent
shell a-landed right in my glass of Coors,
splashing me like puddle stomp—guests
were a-making it for their get-a-ways
by then, and I just happened to spot
them two stealing hound dogs

up on the porch, content as
fresh apple pie, curled up
sleeping, they’n happy
faced-mongrels, bellies
swelled a whole lot, and
them lookin’ like they
swallowed more than
canaries all right.


36 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Winner
7-4-20