Shrimp Cocktail
The bogles the terrier chased
and at whom he howled were not
of grief or aggravation but
of the past: ours, not his. These
bogles are still part of the house.
He knows how fiercely we cling. That’s
what makes us stupid, an open
book, about these things. We’ve built quite
a history of clinging to
houses even as they’re being
wrenched away. He knows we wrote our
name on the walls and in kitchen
cabinets for the new people
to find and hopefully to shriek,
This is not the place for us! He
knows all this. The threat of uproot
has a lingering smell, he says.
You know the story, a woman’s
ex evicts her but she puts shrimp
cocktail inside the curtain rods
before she leaves. The stink drives him
away and she gets her house back.
The terrier makes everything
better. We hear him sniff-sniffing
out danger and it is the most
comforting thing in the whole world.
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