TEMPORARY JOB

  

I rolled the little dog upon her back,

Her limp, sedated body spread to bare

Its vulnerable abdomen— nipples

Never to be suckled—while her head

Flopped over to one side, as though a truck

Had slammed her hard against a garbage can.

Upon the vet’s behest, I shone the light

And put the shiny scalpel to her flesh,

And sliced her down the middle as he watched

His new assistant learn to cut the tubes

And then remove the ovaries. The scene   

Was etched upon my mind against my will;

And my revulsion drew back from each stitch

That hid Man’s treachery from Man’s best friend—

Or so Man thought.

                                The whole world screamed at me

That I should get a job and earn my keep;

For high school was behind me at long last.

My father’s finger pointed at the door—

So here I was, among the working class.

 

The whole thing troubled me. It seemed that I

Was violated somehow, like that dog,

In being ripped untimely from the womb

Of literature and music, and cast out

Upon the streets of life where such as he,

This false friend of the animals, snipped tubes,

While boys like me were shipped to Vietnam—

Another place of gelding and betrayal.

 

I washed the kennels with a mop and hose,

And fed the cats and dogs, and picked up trash

About the parking lot. The whole thing stank.

I couldn’t wait until I turned eighteen,

So I could move to some romantic town

And start to live a life of Poetry.

I hardly knew myself at all.

                                             Three days

Did not go by before I spoke my mind,

And told the doctor that this kind of work

Was not for me; I couldn’t spay a dog—

It seemed against the nature of the world.

I half expected he would yell at me;

Instead he looked me sternly in the eye,

And not without an envious regard.

 

“You know,” he said, “although you are too young

To realize what it means, not everyone

Can say what you have said; can stand and face

The world because of what he thinks is right.

Of course, I don’t agree with you, and yet

There are not many people I have known

Whom I respect—and you are one of them.”

 

He shook my hand; I stammered disavowals.

“Goodbye,” he said sincerely, “and good luck.” 

 

Perplexed and grim, I stood awhile outside

And waited for my father to come by

And pick me up on his way home from work.

I dreaded telling him; and when I did,

He drove along in silent thought, and seemed

To know me better than I knew myself.