The Transformation – Jeffrey Zable

Somehow Little Dog turned into Big Dog
and now he don’t wanna shake hands no more.
He won’t roll over for no one and he certainly
aint gonna fetch no stick. He just wanna lie there
next to the stove and dream his life away,
and in most respects I can’t blame him
cause I mostly want to do the same.

And just the other day I thought I heard him say,
“If weze just gonna die, then what does it matter!”

I looked at him for the longest time until finally
he lifted his head and nodded toward his bowl,
which I guess I didn’t fill high enough that morning.

And when he got to his feet and walked over there,
I reflected on when he used to be Little Dog
and was always wagging his tail, like being alive
was the greatest thing in the world. .

About the contributor: Jeffrey Zable is a teacher, conga drummer who plays AfroCuban folkloric music for dance classes and Rumbas, and a writer of poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction. Recent writing can be found in Tigershark, Lucent Dreaming, Cacti Fur, Spelk, Ink In Thirds and many others.