Legion

You speak of Pit Bulls, I block and parry
And mightily chirrup my hostile parody of
Protectionism and fear, borne on a swathe of
Hordes alike, the brethren of the Bull Dog, with
Eyes made bright like reptiles, shaking our tried
and tested phrases at you and your tears, we emit
our jeers and paste our memes, our gladly mesmerised
heads excitable & sweaty with Pit Bull dreams.

He moves apart from me, and yet is the sum of me
constrained by my hope & the leather cord, he
glances at me & my lost heart loves him so,
although I know, I know and know, that constant,
the last vestiges of my former conscience murmurs
like the buzzing of a picnic bee, the wasp in the bottle
that I raise to my lips, 'you are his creature'
He could evade your hopes at any time;
Gift a deadly sting of blood and truth and terror.

Lord of the streets, people fall away in whispers
Disapproving, changing directions, crossing streets,
Glancing, avoiding; clutching their pets to their
breasts or their flanks, panicked and panicking,
He knows & I see his chest burgeon & his eyes
Lighten, I speak & his ear turns but between the
stinking rope that binds us, I feel his joy & the
Weighty sum of all his blood & all his ghosts
The furious, fast, ferocious past & his inheritance
Bound to me in my cosy home, this dog of death and bone.

Iconic outlaw; he is me and I am him, rejected
Dejected, misunderstood – my frail psyche found
Peace in his dangerous face, his smiling jaws, he plays
On me as fearless as a loveable rogue, boundless energy
And the muscles that swathe him compel me to run my
Hot hands over him in some spell-binding fascination; the
awful power of him that sleeps at my hearth; I touch
Him with a prayer – do not hurt me, do not deliver all
that you are; do not become all that you wish for.

You speak of Pit Bulls, I lie and obscure
I quote and yarn, quarrelsome & querulous, deny
Your truths, the weeping wounded & the broken bodies,
I speak of mixed breeds, curs & mongrels, chained brutes
Of no good measure & made for violence, kicked & cursed,
Ignored & used, a thousand names for the abused, any
Name that leaches into the ether & forms on my lips
I will use; and failing that I will consort with hordes
Of my own kind with their own canine Lords, and
Together we will form a wall of fury to wipe away
The blood & the questions, 'til truth be smothered
Under tons of Pit Bull dog flesh, & all their Lovers.