My dog wakes herself with a fart,
eyes filled with accusation
that I had played a nasty trick,
her glare cold, convinced.
I don’t back down,
spaghetti western music plays
in my ears, I can almost feel
the cracked earth under my feet.
Accusation turns to hurt,
sadness now welling in her eyes.
My resolve begins to falter,
a creep of guilt I can’t explain.
Then she turns to lick her anal glands
and we both know the jig is up.
————
Adrianna McCollum is a writer of nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She won First Place in Nonfiction in the 73rd Annual Jade Ring Writing Contest and has had poetry published in A Year in Ink: Volume 15 and Creative Wisconsin Magazine. She is working on final revisions of a middle-grade portal fantasy novel called Peregrine from the Stories. She was inspired to write in the fantasy genre after stepping through a portal to another world while she was living in Oxford as a graduate student. That actually happened. On a rainy day on Queen Street.