[poetry] Behavioral Therapy

You want a dog
a puppy slobbering under the Christmas tree.
You've wheedled, you begged, you whined
you went ahead and bought the collar
the leash
the matched set of doggy dishes
the dogcare books
and a rawhide bone with knots at each end.

You run into the living room
wearing jammies a size too big
don't even look at the tree
and before you even touch
the big box, unwrapped,
with airholes on the sides,
your gift meows at you.

When he jumps into your lap
purring,
sticking like velcro to you
(for the body heat, you decide)
you look down at him
still stunned
and name him Rover.

You do your best with him;
Lord knows having a cat isn't easy.
You shout when he bats and doesn't fetch
scratches and doesn't chew
run out of paper towels five times
teaching him to piss outside and not in a box
and wish in desperation for different ways.
Rover sits on you and paws at your chest
and licks at your nose when you wake.
His tongue is always too rough
it's your nose, not your hand.
But there's dog food on his breath;
that at least is right.

With time he learns to sit when you say,
stay, come when you whistle.
Sporadic and begrudging, but it happens.
You teach him better than to meow
or purr or jump
or twitch his springlike tail.
He growls instead,
guttural, foreign sounds in his throat,
and you have your dog.

--January 2007

This is the crown jewel of what I wrote in my poetry class in January.  The title isn't as much of a non sequitur as it might seem at first.