Here Come the Dogs by Omar Musa Page A

that Jimmy is scratching his Adam’s apple in disappointment. On the TV, it’s the scene where Chopper is trying to convince his mates to kidnap the prison guards and lay siege to the jail. ‘What a plan. Dumb cunt,’ snorts Aleks. ‘You’d get fucken forty more years.’
    Jimmy looks at him again, trying to glean some insight from his mate’s offhand comment. Aleks places plates in front of his wife and Jimmy. ‘
Pileshko
,’ Sonya says shyly, gesturing at the chicken with her chin. ‘
Fala mnogu,
Aleks.’
    Sonya is Anglo but she’s been with Aleks for so long that she speaks Macedonian almost fluently. She took immediately to the structure and Aleks’ obsession with all things traditional. He beams with pride and kisses her, then says to Jimmy, ‘Not too shabby, ay? Come on. Eat up, both of you. You’re all skin and bone.’
    Sonya begins to tell Jimmy a story. He listens to her, almost childlike, experiencing each emotion as she tells it, eyes shining when hers do. Aleks knows she’s always had a soft spot for Jimmy, that he reminds her of a hurt dog she once found on the side of a street, all kicking legs and wounded eyes. She regards Solomon as flashy and shark-like, and feels as if Jimmy is someone who could flourish if given the oxygen. Or explode?

12

    The hound

    As I untie the leash,
    I put my nose to his head.
    The fine fur is almost odourless,
    a scar from the muzzle on his face.

    I trace a finger over it.

    Cradling the long head in my hands,
    I look into the lone alert eye.
    It would be easy to crush his skull
    with a cricket bat or a rock,
    in one perfect stroke.

    Fuck, what am I thinking?

    I pull the leash away.
    Mercury Fire pauses,
    streamlined and legged
    to a grass-warped shadow.
    Then he dances away with the shadow,
    cantering off and building to a sprint within bounds,
    his spine as flexible as a bow,
    body extended,
    charged with blood,
    with ancient chases
    and deer courses in forests long gone.

    Like him,
    I used to run and run,
    from here to the stone gazebo
    on the edge of the park
    and back again, to keep lean.

    He’s bounding towards some joggers
    on the far side of the oval,
    long legs still powerful.
    Contracting, extending,
    contracting, extending.

    Is he imagining the race?
    The arena,
    the ceremony of gamblers and luckseekers,
    the strange smells coming to him from the stands,
    the straining hounds on either side,
    eager and competitive souls in their chests?

    A pointless struggle,
    actors in a strange tragedy
    where the winner never wins,
    never gets its prey.

    The true winner is removed,
    a tall figure in the stands
    with a ticket in his hands.

    When I quit basketball,
    I forfeited adulation
    and the weekly engagement of muscle and will.

    I used to walk home
    through this oval,
    lie in the dew,
    drunk and reeking,
    thinking of the times I pured a three
    or threaded a pass perfectly.
    Misses,
    awards,
    failure.

    No basketball, no dad to play for –
    been rudderless ever since.

    Maybe that’s why I bought the hound.
    Maybe it was a reason to be responsible for something again.

    I see a figure in a red polka dot dress approaching
    then I look back to Mercury Fire.

    He changes direction and veers towards me –
    something in his sight streak has appeared.
    He’s snapping after a butterfly,
    bright yellow and out of reach.

    My affinity with him,
    my fear of him,
    deeper than appreciation of speed.

    We’re nothing but spray cans,
    used up and thrown away,
    creating something that gets painted over within a day.

    He comes back to me,
    panting and smiling.

    The figure in the red polka dot dress is close.

    â€˜Good boy,’ I say,
    patting Mercury Fire.

    â€˜Hi,’ says Scarlett Snow.
    â€˜Hi.’

    The gazebo

    There’s no one around
    and the windows are partially obscured
    by bare rose bushes.
    I hike her onto the stone bench
    and offer my throat,
    which she clasps with