For Tony

Just outside the Bowery of New York there is Sarah D. Roosevelt Park.  There’s a small dog park I like to visit every time I come to the state just to envy those who are desperately in love with their dogs.  There are no readings today, Friday, so I decided to take the day off to walk around and just be.  In a large gravelled space enclosed by a gate are all these dogs going insane over one another.  As if they’ve never seen another of their kind before.  Owners entering the park for the first time have to coax their pets away from them after the leash is stripped from their collar.  It’s strange to the beast.  It isn’t the fierce freedom, they’ll do what they want all day.  It’s not their domestication.  It’s the imprint made.  Not the kind that birds on first sight of their mother from crack of shell, but nothing suffers mutually as much as a mutt or full breed, long hair or short will.  Their struggle is yours incarnate.  Bowl and table become just the same when food doesn’t fill the cabinets or drink in the refrigerator.  Docile eyes under the rub of hand have mended rips in many of men’s insides.  There is nothing like a friend that will kick anyone’s ass if there’s the slightest hint of a threat.  It is strange, the delectation sweet they’re rewarded with when you still have to endure.

In the middle of the dog pit there’s a bloodhound howling away at all thirty-some other dogs pounding around.  His lips drip and sag with long, deep HOOTS!  Is he curious I wonder?  as he hollers out WHO? WHO!? Some owners are prying their dog of other too familiar with the grace.  Walking around, further into the park, I can still hear that hound.  Sitting down a while away people read books on benches, talking to one another and I just sit.  The light coming through the trees are blinding and it leads me to these two, six or so benches down.  Her ass is pushing into his pants the way you wouldn’t expect to see in a public park.  Little ones are passing when his hands move her breasts beneath her red knit sweater as enlivening as wind in a sail.  His tongue presses down on his bottom lip, shifting his hips, directing the ship.

“Hey pal!  What do you think you’re teaching these little ones about respecting a lady?!”  I want to yell.  I don’t though because the guy looks like he can mash a truck with his eyelids.  If I were a mother or some form of mighty woman I’d say something.  There’s only two possible reasons why a man wouldn’t hit you raw from confrontation.  You’re partially immune if you’re a woman or naked.  A good friend of mine once told me that if someone wants to fight you just get naked.  Because who’s gonna hit a naked guy, really?  People, including myself need to get nude more often save the world we live and die in.