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DOGS OF AUSTRALIA
... 8. i fed the guard dogs cupcakes
i fed the guard dogs cupcakes, slipping them through the big gaps in the wire, the smell
from the bakery that had filled their noses for hours, now making its way into dog saliva,
fresh warm cupcakes coming towards them, as if in their dreams those cakes were
coming, you must feed them cupcakes, to make them sweet & kind, somewhere a dog lay
dying, on a neighbours long front lawn, a big german shepherd with a tattered brown
coat, an old guard dog that had escaped, i fed him a cupcake as he died, the sweet pink
icing around his slobbery old mouth, cake crumbs caught in whiskers to be licked off in a
while, he barely had the strength to eat & most likely would be dead before he could
digest it, so i collected the green dew off the buffalo grass & dripped it onto his gums &
teeth, he had bad sour breath but he was sweet, i held him to me like blanket, before the
volunteers came from the r.s.p.c.a., to take him away to be destroyed, a fitting end to a
life that had been destroyed, many years before, but somewhere along the line from
puppyhood to now, i fed the dog a cupcake, as if even only for a second, it had laid
warmly there & melted on his tongue, he must have known that he was loved, at least by
one of us, don't let them bluff you from behind the strange high fences, those ancient
guard dogs from the industrial wastelands, with their big old barking & snarly voices,
chained by the machinery to the rain, chained miserably to their shaggy lives, visited by
flies & mosquitoes, for all of the seasons & years they could have lived, as a dog would
like to live, we must feed the guard dogs cupcakes to make them sweet again, to take
the fierceness from the growl, wedged inbetween the gums & teeth, to set the tails
wagging, the old hides shaking in the spring, tell them to 'sit down, good dog,' then spoil
them rotten, the eyes of mistrust will fill with icing |
