There is a woman in my neighborhood

with not one, but six

full-grown St. Bernard dogs.

She tethers them to her waist

and trots the happy troop

up and down the street.

I see her and think what a wild indulgence,

to gather so much joy it orbits you

in a glorious parade of gluttony,

as if she leaves the house and dares

the world to question

how much happiness one person deserves.

It’s ridiculous, of course—

but so is happiness,

so is the heart’s hunger

for more and more and more.

In those loaded dice days of divorce,

after he threatened to bury her in the woods,

after she smashed the smoothtop into shards,

after he force-fed her the spark

and watched her burn with a beer in his hand,

after she patched each bruise like a leaky roof,

knowing the storm would come again,

my mother tells me she has bad luck with men.

Bad luck, like a red sock washed with the whites,

a bird at the window tapping twice, spilled salt.

But you can’t call it luck when the whole deck

is rigged— as if misfortune, not men,

put her in the fire.

We carried them in our hands—

tied letters of love and war

to their paper pink ankles.

They don’t know

they’re unwanted,

that they’ve become

iridescent burdens burrowed

in gutters we’ve lined with spikes

just for them.

They bob their heads,

coo at the feet that kick them away,

doing only as we taught them:

return.

And isn’t that the way of things?

The heart loves to outlive its welcome,

to circle the place it was last fed,

to make a meal out of crumbs.