20151227 ( pets)

If you're old, already napping 

Half the day, it will be hard 

To notice the disturbance 

Jetlag wreaks in your visiting 

Hours. Rather than trouble 

You about your failure to 

Engage in scintillating 

Repartee′ your hosts civilly 

Let your body lie like a lump 

Undisturbed in a bedroom 

Designated for your stay, 

The couch, or any chair into 

Which you have collapsed. 

The only one not accepting this

Arrangement is the dog, in this 

Case a recently groomed (yesterday),

Sweet smelling (what type of

Shampoo do they use?), white-ish

Blond Bichon-frise/Cavalier 

King Charles, breviterized into

Cavachon, and given to the 

Most ebullient personality

Packable into eleven pounds of

Pseudo-wolf since we started

Taking them in, sharing our food,

Heated homes, and, unashamedly,

Beds. One might have to yield 

To this (your) nose-licking,

Agitated creature, eager for play.

Not to respond is a course you

Do not want to explore as it

(the nasal tongue-lashing) will

Only get more aggressive.

As I write she is penned 

In the kitchen with her food,

Water dishes and her brand new,

Upsized sleeping bed. The girls 

Speculate she will not get

Much larger. The family is off

Doing some shopping, daddy is

Slicing open several people's

Backs, mending the broken,

Straightening the displaced,

Easing the pain as best science

Knows how. Her name is 

Cosette, after the character in

The musical Les Miserables.

Gus-gus, their darling black

Rabbit who preceded Cosette

In role of family animal care,

Is in his hutch gnawing through

Three delicious fresh carrots.

We love them, we leash them,

We pen them, first because we

Want them to stay and we can't 

Count on it--ever--as I learned

With my Sophia who wandered

Away for little more than a day.

And we may have paid dearly 

For them. Gus-gus has a larger

Keep in the back yard and on

Sunny dry days it's his jungle.

Cosi might be left on a tether

As the girls play in the front.

We, as a species though, bristle 

At being hemmed in, jailed,

Closeted, caged, but we 

Paradoxically think nothing 

Of pens, chains, and zoos.







c J.S.Manista, 2015