A new poem by Art Nahill.

Boyhood

I hate the way
the dog cowers
when I raise my voice.

After all this time together
she’s still not sure
what I’m capable of.

As kids with too much time
we sprinkled salt
on slugs

plucked from summer
gardens watched them shrivel
on the hot cement.

As a puppy
she was petrified of stairs.
And her stump of a tail

someone chopped off
with a blunt blade.

Some neighbourhood boys
shoved lit firecrackers
into the mouths of frogs.

We thought we could rise
above our cruelty then
believing as we did

in the sacraments.
There was plenty of time
we figured for our redemption

just the matter
of a few our fathers
hail marys muttered

over and over
from our bony knees.