Undercover
With help she trains them. Contacts made,
details tended, she never drops her guard.
At night, a barn far from town, her pit yelps,
lunges into blood, turbulence, animal terror.
She towels blood from its snout. It limps
at her side to the truck. A carcass dragged
from the barn lies in dirt, the edge of grass,
throat torn. Money goes out of her hand,
the hand that brushes her five year old
daughter’s hair, feeds her Golden Retriever.
She’s one of them, the depraved human ring
till, the handcuffed shoved into patrol cars,
two pits safe in a van, a driver puts a key
in the ignition, hits the gas petal, pulls away.
- © Peter Mladinic 2023
Peter Mladinic’s fifth book of poems, Voices from the Past, is forthcoming from Better Than Starbucks Publications. An animal rights advocate, he lives in Hobbs, New Mexico, USA.
No comments:
Post a Comment