“Dog bites child—child arrested.”
A blurb below the fold said.
Query: will he be okay?
What trauma was done that day?
A dog that’s bit is never the same,
Nightmares of screams always remain.
Bitter flesh between his teeth,
Could ruin his food for weeks.
Women reading the article mutter,
“Kids these days, why do we bother?
Education and Ritalin, yet they run wild.
Something will have to be done!”
Council’s in session—judge is seated.
The dog brought in, duly feted.
The kid dragged in, a wild-eyed brat.
Sullen and cranky in a baseball cap.
Arguments heard and judgment given.
The dog is set free and the boy is driven—
To a local shelter, where experts bound
By law, in mercy, tie the child down.
Headline read: “Dog bites Child.”
Backpage blurb: “Child Put Down.”
-- Emily Rose Cockerham is a poet and educator whose work explores faith, domesticity, power, and the quiet violences of ordinary life. Her poems often braid dark humor with lyric restraint and attend closely to the moral pressure of language. She teaches English and lives with her cats.