Out the dog door
I was watching a professional football game
and the crowd of booing bloated beerheads
not to mention the belligerently ballistic head coach
were all screaming RED at the quarterback
who was obviously doing his best,
when suddenly—I had a memory of my junior high school gym class
and it hit me like a clothesline tackle.
But before I go there, I had a simultaneous but not off
the subject memory during the two-minute warning.
Having to do with how I hate it when people speak of
animals as dumb animals. I must have a vested interest.
Once, I saw a little dog at a Christmas plus Hanukkah party,
little holiday bells on her collar, she was only trying to love
everybody in sight, not leave anybody out, running between
everybody’s legs, looking up, looking up at everyone,
but when she—eyes up, ears up, paws up—when she
jumped up
well fuck, that was it.
The party stopped, everybody went berserk.
They screamed at her so hard her eyes went wide, went back
in her head, shaking so hard she froze, got low, then she ran
out to somewhere away from the dining room, so fast between
the mingling shoes until she got out the dog door, by herself in the dark,
eyes wide and white like the moon above her
and she stared up at it like maybe, just maybe, there was something
like her up there, somebody or something simpatico.
I watched, having discreetly followed her out the dog door,
and the moon must have helped her because when she
looked back down to earth, over at me, saw me peeing in the bushes,
she seemed to understand that I knew what she was going through.
I sure did. And the first time I understood it was way back
in the early 70s, one day in junior high school gym class.
Maybe not anymore, but back in the 70s they gave you a shirt
in gym class with a blank box on the front
where you were supposed to write your name.
After the bullying dull-eyed teacher, coach, father figure,
future driver’s ed instructor
had called me “bird muscle” and worse (to him, what did I care?),
like disrespectful, undisciplined, maybe even unAmerican,
made me do at least four or five thousand push-ups
for my attitude, and for being good at all his sports anyway,
even with my hairdo,
I took out a pen and wrote clear and strong black and white
bold in the blank box not my name but OUT OF ORDER.
I sure was. (He flunked me, and worse). I sure am.
And the dog howls at the moon any night she wants to
but no longer needs to long for the moon
because she can see that there are no dogs on the moon
and she wants fun and love down here on earth.
And the quarterback, no timeouts left, 3rd and long,
smiles, sort of festively
at the line of scrimmage
changes the play, then he runs—
eighty yards
around the safety
and any other sort of safety
and dives into the end zone, head-first over the head
of the head coach (athletically, rebelliously,
surrealistically not going out of bounds)—for a touchdown!
