Morning, Chancellor’s Handyman

 

Morning, Chancellor’s Handyman

Two dogs promise
with sincere snouts, soft whimpers:
Set us free to run this fenced yard
just a few minutes. We’ll dance
the dog-polka and be ever grateful.
With human fingers I unlatch chains.

Whoa! Like deer they leap the gate.
Gone, the graceful goofy mutts
through mud and wet weeds sticky with seeds.
Call me sucker. Call me fool.
I say to you, this world needs more softies.

Here comes Dr. Markoman tying a bathrobe shut
asking why I let his dogs out, so I jog around
the private school campus as fancy cars arrive
unchaining beautiful young minds embedded in
goofy graceful bodies.

Can’t find dogs until I return and,
awaiting me in the back yard:
Warm tongues, happy tails.
Now who’s the fool?

Monday’s first task is to stuff scattered
rained-on garbage into a dumpster.
Shove. It squirts. Rinse, repeat.
Call me dirty. Call me smelly. I say to you,
deal with your garbage. Or deal with me.
Choose.

Next, this old door is sticky, delaminating.
Glue and clamps, grease the hinges,
shave the edge while from the next room
come murmurs, donors, an elegant breakfast
of croissant, crème fraîche.
Give me crunchy bread with black coffee,
then let me run with dogs. I fix things.
You need me. What’s next?

……

First published in Anti-Heroin Chic
photo by Vik M