A dog stands on three legs
in the middle of the street,
blocking traffic
while he scratches behind his ear,
heedless of the little girl crying
in the yard where she can’t find him
and of the man three cars back
who has just left his wife,
who cannot comprehend his suffering
or he hers- she sees the one true union of her life
now broken, and this pain and shock
blind her to the pathos of a friend
whose stability falters now and again.
No one, it seems, takes notice either
of the small figure high in the sky
whose wings begin to drop away,
and even he, just now, I’m sure,
couldn’t care less about the pesky flea
behind the ear of that dog.
Issue