My dog takes a crap in the doorway of one of those new blocks of flats,
that have spread through our suburb like the AIDs virus
spread through the community of men who like to have sex with men
way back there in the 1980s, as this chick comes out the doorway,
and she turns and purses her lips, and I think puts her hands on her hips,
or did she point, with her nose hoisted into the air as if attached to a crane,
and says, “Do you mind cleaning that up, as it’s right in the doorway?”
She didn’t say that in a polite way, no she did not,
– as if there is a polite way to say clean up your shit –
but in a demanding, the world revolves around her kind of way.
And I am, actually, standing there trying to open the pooh bag with my fingers,
I am struggling to separate the two layers of green biodegradable plastic,
and, Huh, bitch? What you say? Goes through my head, as I look at her,
and my lips start to form those very words to say to her, as I gaze at her rat face.
But I stop myself because I have learned that, perhaps, a filter is best,
when dealing with the very clearly entitled, it is all about me, types.
And I mumble something like, “Of course, I am going to do that.”
And I stop myself from telling her to proceed with her day and not to worry about me,
in two words that I think are very clearly able to convey my meaning succinctly.
And I think - even though I think that cleaning up dog shit,
which is perfectly organic and biodegradable without us sliding it into a specially design baggie, is stupid - it was probably started by people like her, whose sphincter is the same shape as those pursed lips that are now pointed at me. Has she had them plumped, I think, could they be naturally that shape?
I do clean it up every time as that is what the world wants me to do.
And I don’t need the embodiment of that nightmare that is people like her,
standing and practically clicking their fingers and demanding it of me, so
I simply smile, and I think my face is betraying me, but it is probably best,
just as those two layers of recalcitrant green plastic separate between my fingers, and I look down, and I complete the job at hand, as though I wasn’t interrupted by anyone. And when I look up again she has gone, and I am pleased. I stop mumbling under my breath. And I start to breathe again.
