A tag-teamed poem "What is the grass" by Connor Deeks

The tag-teamed poem by Connor Deeks

 

A child asks, what is the grass? What is it?

She wasn’t even looking at me when

She asked. I’m not even sure she really

Wanted an answer, just twirling around,

A top fresh off the string on hot concrete,

Talking away, a jack-in-the-box laugh.

 

She would talk away about the neighbor’s

Dog, Pixie, who never once stopped barking.

They could have been twins, they looked similar,

She dog-headed or her human-bodied.

She ran yard to yard, taunting that poor girl.

 

What is the sky? Still no answer needed,

Then Pastor James came and held her tightly,

Squeezing that poor crazy girl by the arms.

She jolted to a halt, “You can’t do this,”

She screamed loudly and bit hard at his hands,

Pixie chomped at the wire holding her back,

Two dogs ferocious, flashing their white teeth.

 

The pastor grimaced but held on tightly,

Blood dripped from his hands dammed by her front teeth,

That girl of eight years too mad to let loose,

She could not hear his pleas born from pain,

That dog yearned for revenge against those who

Kept her caged, kept her tied up days on end.

 

Pastor James finally let that dog go,

The dog ripped loose from the wire, the grip lost,

Two dogs free of their shackles but enraged,

One charged the pastor, the other charged too.

A dog fight is not a fight when one dog

Is not a dog at all, but a young girl.