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    Shelter
    Shelter
    Shelter
    Ebook75 pages24 minutes

    Shelter

    By Carey Salerno

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Disturbing because of the cruelty intended as kindness to animals and the speaker’s unflinching, relentless insistence on her culpability, these poems force us to consider whether we can be redeemed by our capacity for love, compassion, and personal responsibility.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAlice James Books
    Release dateMay 30, 2016
    ISBN9781938584916
    Shelter

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      Book preview

      Shelter - Carey Salerno

      FLEDGLING

      Tina fastens the needle,

      barrel blue to lcc.

      A dose we divide for seven

      kittens. I pinch one by the scruff.

      Hind legs scrunch to haunches;

      he hangs, a sack of bones.

      We turn from the purple carrier,

      backs to the mother, guttural moan.

      Kittens, velvet skeletons, wither

      in my hands, cumbersome skulls

      drooping without muscle. Their tongues

      strain to brush ashen noses—

      then slacken, knock against loose jaws

      unmasking porcelain, pushpin teeth.

      Tina rustles out a garbage bag, inhales

      sterile plastic. I drop in kittens, some not

      yet dead, cull more juice and hoist mother.

      I wrap fingers like tape on legs, stretching

      her urine-damp body. She doesn’t fight

      as Tina draws closer, knowing

      the angle at which to pierce a heart.

      WHITE WOLF

      There are dogs going mad after a few

      days in kennel rows. Rottweilers

      mostly, we give them three days tops

      until restless kennel legs

      jump them in circles, barge

      torsos at rusted pen doors. Their anemic lips

      snarl at offers to play outside

      and we say time up—fearing wet jaws.

      She’s the same and we name her Suisse, purebred

      Blanc Berger, white and striking, unspayed. Snow

      ushers her in because she isn’t good

      with children, has a slight food aggression problem,

      though we hold her for breed’s rescue. I chaperone

      her in our courtyard and she runs me

      like a slave, growling when I escort her indoors.

      If other dogs are brought to play, a flash of teeth.

      The diva dog won’t let me pet or touch her

      bristled coat when I slip the braided

      blue lead onto her

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