The dog is not to lunge at the cat, nor push it with his large aggressive nose, nor chase it when it makes to run for cover. He knows this. The cat's a burr in his ear, it enters the room and galls him. He could crush the bones of its neck. He could shake it like a slipper. Drop it. Nudge it into a heap and leave it. But the cat is smaller therefore stronger. Sometimes he forgets, it teases by, he bristles, his muscles hum like springs, they tremble. He rises, eyes it sideways, snaps his head away. Erases it. Copyright © Ruth Anderson Barnett. http://www.unl.edu/schooner/psmain.htm @3Prairie Schooner@1 is a literary quarterly published since 1927 which publishes original stories, poetry, essays, and reviews. Regularly cited in the prize journals, the magazine is considered one of the most prestigious of the campus-based literary journals. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...JOHN BARLEYCORN by ROBERT BURNS TO SIR HENRY WOTTON (1) by JOHN DONNE THE ORIGIN OF DIDACTIC POETRY by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL DREAM-LOVE by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI SING-SONG; A NURSERY RHYME BOOK: 110 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI ASTROPHEL AND STELLA: 20 by PHILIP SIDNEY |