Greg Huteson

The Doghouse Before It’s Torn Down


What of it is brick and stable
and which parts of it are transient
constructed as it is of scraps
and lengths of weather-beaten board?

There are angles, there are gaps.
The plywood’s willy-nilly nailed
to two-by-fours and half
the nails, a goodly half, are gone.

The wolfy shadows, tattered rug
are seen not only through the door.
The rain has warped the walls, the roof.
The roof’s not even fastened on.

Some careless jester laid it down,
thought to anchor it with bricks.
But weighted by this quick fix trick,
it sags behind the hasty fence,

a tall and slipshod wire mesh 
that’s crudely laced with four or five
lavender petunia stems,
their leaves bedraggled by the dog,

a German Shepherd black and tan
made anxious by its narrow run
but exiled now to bark at men
in other yards, to run its jitters down.

Soon off will come the concave roof,
the pungent walls laid flat,
the planks with nails set aside
as rubbish in the doggone yard.

Greg Huteson’s recent poems have appeared in the Christian Century, Blue
Villa, Cassandra Voices, The Honest Ulsterman, and elsewhere. He has
lived in East Asia for many years and currently calls Taichung, Taiwan
home.