Somewhere, Dogs Are Barking: Two Poems by Brandon Shane
2 min read
Payment Plan
Somewhere dogs are barking, and their walker
is drunk on vodka after a bad break, the forecast
was a dry summer day but it began to rain.
I think about the rattling chains of happenstance
and the time it finally snaps, my father who
drank and ate and smoked like health was new age
religion and died at sixty-five of a heart-attack.
I think sixty-five years of not caring and going
suddenly with a sausage egg and cheese
in your mouth is not so bad. I would not make it
to thirty-five with the same tact, not to mention
the leaded gas and DDT sprayed on his hands,
but we ate food from non-stick pans
and have enough plastic in our heads to recycle,
have college degrees but can't afford anything
above a studio or needing roommates, let
alone home ownership and for God’s sake,
why is the average car payment six hundred,
I used to eat baloney sandwiches scraped
with mayonnaise by sewer-pipes thinking of
Pennywise and now have an advanced degree
that has harmed my employment potential,
while friends lay under the sun and became
raisins and cops placed rocks in back seats,
others ran away and could never run again,
three live under bridges, two have retreated
to cabins and I leapt out a meshed window
the first time taking LSD, and I thought
eating that baloney sandwich I would have
made it at thirty but I flop on Seal Beach
and retire the nights smoking cheap cigars
that layer my throat in carcinogens,
and have drunk a few times walking
purebreds in neighborhoods where wealth
is in grooming, ten or fifteen years of good
living leads a question, sixty-five an implicit yes,
and tonight I am lying against a Gold Gate cypress
thinking of the Golden Gate Bridge, how Autumn
sounds better than Fall, and it invariably begins to rain.
Christmas Eve
The girls reach for ornaments
glazed like pistachio and cherries,
a boxed-up Santa stuffed in the attic,
thirty pounds heavier with my father’s things.
I tape fresh mistletoe under doors,
press my cheek against cold glass—
moonlight tarped over the metal swing
I built when Jodie turned five.
My mother calls for eggnog. My sister
shushes me and shows me her bloody cut,
as if to say, I trust you enough not to tell.
I soothe her as streetlights blur in the mist.
I remember wrapping white sheets
around my shoulders and walking puddled
streets as my father quieted the block;
darkness was held anywhere
but the night. Neighbors opened their doors
and brought me their warmth. I let the sheets
settle along asphalt, scented with rain, while
police lights melted like candy canes.
Wrapping a bandage around her shin,
I kiss her forehead, as if to say,
I love you enough not to tell.
Counting down to Christmas,
my mother chimes, You are glistening,
before we huddle around the tree.
Author: Brandon Shane is a poet and horticulturist. You can see his work in Rattle, trampset, Variant Lit, The Chiron Review, Stone Circle Review, UCLA Westwind, The Marrow Poetry, One Art Poetry, Spectra Poets, Thirteen Bridges, and Muse Journal, among others. He graduated from Cal State Long Beach with a degree in English.