—IT’S NOT ALWAYS PRETTY, EVEN IF IT’S TRUE

 

The Dogs Were Good (Again)

 

As if they had a choice, chained to the backyard fence, whimpering in the freeze like the weaklings you said they’d be. I threw some dry ham bones and snouted one, remembering to laugh as you’d said to. None of them ever barked, which made me wonder what good they were even after the spray hose shot ice bullets and dirt nails across their fur. Last night, I took dinner by candlelight and ate my steak facing the window, holding up each forkful so the moonglow caught the juice dripping, precisely the way you said I should if they were ever dopes again. Not one of them pulled on the links, not even the mom of those two scrawny runts, which made me wonder—what good is it having a mother anyway?