Every trip has a dog
pretty much always
a scruffy damn bastard
born out of wedlock
and necessity.
I laugh without showing
my teeth, when I think
of all the Shetland Show Ponies,
those perfectly groomed daughters
of Lassitude, sat in clean
kitchens watching organic
chicken livers cut up for them,
who were named Scruffy
on the Christmas morning
they were given to their
particular princess.
Not on the streets
of Managua or Mexico City,
in Buenos Aires even or here
in La Orotava, where there
are a dozen lost barks
for every good bed.
Street dogs are the model
for any alien species.
Matted limbs of this
and that, jammed together.
Free and often dead soon.