Some Game

by Emily Light

Some Game

The word for a boy dog is dog,
so I yell Dog! when he pees on his sister
like she’s a fencepost to mark,
when he takes rabbits in his mouth
and they scream like dog toys
as if they’re part of the game.
Maybe someone in his first life,
his puppy life in Texas,
told him he was born on the winning side.
You’re just like every other boy, I tell him,
my hands covered in his soil-
threaded slobber,
ready to throw his ball again in 90-degree weather.
You don’t care about anyone else’s feelings.
Dog grins. Dog decapitates my daisies.
Dog nibbles my sandaled toes,
delighted by every screech.
How do I teach this dog he’s wrong
when I can’t stop whispering I love you
into his big ears while he sleeps?

Poet Emily Light is a poet, educator, and mother living in northern New Jersey. Her poetry can be found in such journals as Inch, Salt Hill, Cherry Tree, terrain.org, and RHINO, among others.

Artist Francesco Capasso was born in Naples in 2001, he is a visual artist and student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Naples, his works range from photography to conceptual art through performance, having interaction and reflection as the principle of work of the participant within the work, uses the landscape as an idealizing pretext.