Latest Story | A Fable about Attention | A Fable about Pot-covers | A Fable about Financial Foresight | A Fable about Another Family | A Fable about Gaming Protocol | A Fable about Hotel Ditties | A Fable about Insurance | A Fable about Point-of-View | A Christmas Fable | Ant Gods | Happenstance | A Fable about an Unexpected Evolution | A Fable about Flattery | A Fable about Forbearance | A Fable about Giftedness | A Fable about Response | A Fable about Tenacity | Homeboy Back & Blue | A Fable about Administrative Slogans | A Fable about Alien Motives | A Fable about Procedure | A Fable about Climate Change | A Fable about Deities | A Fable about Dark Matter | A Fable about Diligence | Guppies | A Fable about Pool Parties | A Fable about Un-Natural Selection | Homeward Bound (excerpt) | A Fable about Breaking News | A Fable about Jibes | A Fable about Psycho-Physics | A Fable about Toughness | A Fable about Surrender | A Fable about Insight | A Fable about Boundaries | Cabbie | A Fable about Definitions | A Fable about Offspring | A Fable about Awareness | A Fable about Authority | A Fable about Cause & Effect | Another fable about Perspective | Succulence | Transaction | A Fable about a Transformation | A Fable about Off-Message | | A Fable about Symbiosis | A Fable about Union | Moe, the Vagabond | Tinker Thinker | One Never Knows | A Fable about the Internet | A Fable about Gods | A Fable about Prediction | A Fable about Craft | A Fable about Debate | A Fable about Smartness | Another Fable about Research | Boots | A Fable about Mindset | Circle of Shade | A Fable about Gamesmanship | Another Fable about Community | A Fable about Multi-Tasking | A Fable about Ditziness | Ties | A Fable about Fortune | A Fable about a Franchise | A Fable about a Glitch | A Fable about Genetic Research | A Fable about Mites and Men | A Fable about Protest | A Fable about Quests | A Fable about Utility | Twin Game | The Crossing | A Fable About The Resort Business | A Fable About Crisis | A Fable About Space/Time | A Passing Talent | Rooli, the Slave | A Fable About A Carbon Footprint | A Fable About Resurrection | A Measure Of Respect | Creature | Meanings | A Fable about an Extraordinary Rendition | Old Shoes | Trancendental Fable | A fable about a Sales Pitch | A fable about Fear | A fable about Servitude | Postcards | hotdog | Familiar Eyes | Cruisers | Click For Older Stories...

BAGBOY

that day when I was small
my father let me wheedle him to name
three pups, Squiggly, and Wiggly, and Bim

the bitch had whelped
too commonly to keep 'em, he ruled
so best they got was four spare weeks
reprieve for proving false
his hound-breeder eye's experience

by and in which time
they grew to fat
and furry favorites of everyone
lapping and licking and wagging
for homeboy and stranger
craving for scratchings of their silky ears
and strokings that made them purr
that part of a popular cheeriness for which
Pa's Charity loaned
'em an even fortnight more

until that sultry day I got his call
"Fetch a bag, boy!"
He cast me an eye,
"Get a rope!"
while he held, I tucked the clumsy trio in
tied fast their pouch of whimpers

I took that walk and sent
the wriggling bundle off
to briefly fly from
the swift ravine's rude bridge

and never forgetting the bitch
would whelp again
breath held, I waited for the splash