Dogs
The guy has an unkempt goatee and a large
dog, the kind of dog that poor people steal. They wait in front of a house
with a magnolia tree, its limbs heavy with blooms. My dog goes berserk.
My dog is small and ill-mannered, black and white fluff, a belly full
of poison oak. The guy says, “My dog is friendly.’’ His
dog does not look friendly. It waits for a command, calm in the manner
of something trained to kill. I say, “My dog is not friendly.’’
What I mean is, I am not friendly. Her breasts are very large, is what
he’s thinking. I wonder where she stays, is what he’s thinking.
Poor people always stay. They don’t live. There are three dogs, unchained,
swarming from the house opposite where we stand. They dart into the street
and pull back like flames. A car comes fast over the hill. The weenie
dog is almost hit. It is very exciting. The guy says, “People should
not leave their dogs out like that,’’ and he is right. It is
a lot of dogs, too many dogs. I smile into the magnolia tree. Then I say,
“Come on, girl,’’ and yank the shit out of my dog’s
neck.
Moon Pie
It was our honeymoon: honey, moon. Honey: a sticky,
sweet, yellowish-brown substance; sweetness; flattery; to cajole or ingratiate
oneself. Moon: the natural satellite of Earth; a lunar month; moonlight;
to pass the time aimlessly; to yearn or pine; infatuation. The definitions
get worse as you go down. When I was born, my father said my face looked
like a Moon Pie and my mother insists the doctor got angry with him and
pronounced me beautiful, which I never believed because every doctor I
ever saw was on his way to someplace else, was already there. Plus, I’ve
seen pictures, my face as flat as the iron or pancake in my father’s
eye. The honeymoon did not go well. We were on a ship, a flag I couldn’t
locate on a map waved overhead, but I was certain it was the flag of a
place we’d never want to go unless it was to remind ourselves how
good we had it, which is sometimes why people go places, to say, see?
You see how good we have it? Or else they go because it is the only thing
that makes coming home bearable. At night, we went to the casino and lost
at blackjack, and during the day, we sat at long tables in the ballroom
so I could continue my reign of never having won a single game of Bingo
in my entire life. It seemed too late now, anyway. My husband sat and
walked and stood beside me. We held onto the rails as the ship tossed
and its pool swirled round and round: flushing, emptying. There was a
sexy legs contest. He came in fifth, beat out by a bowlegged Italian and
four old men. We were losers. Two losers bound together by the power invested
in somebody with the hopes of passing on the best we had to offer to our
children.
Mary Miller’s work can be found online at
elimae, Vestal Review, Frigg, and Barrelhouse, among others.
She lives in Mississippi with her husband.
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