When the Dog Bites It’s one of those things that happen to other people and besides, I’d always wanted a puppy so I stopped to say hello and was distracted by the gathering saliva, the darkness of its lips, the sudden wrongness of it all so when its jaw clamped down at first, there was only silence and a warm empty feeling. I wanted to disappear. I started singing an old children’s song but I couldn’t remember the words so I closed my eyes and pictured my mother in the kitchen the day she said girls in white dresses should never be caught lying on their backs stirring the stars at night with their tongue. She had a knife in her hand at the time though I couldn’t quite remember why and when I opened my eyes I could see the blood seeping through the grass. I don’t know at what point he let go and later, when the doctor asked me what happened, I told him it was just an accident. It was nobody’s fault but my own.
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Kristina McDonald
SIXFOLD POETRY SUMMER 2013