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!