Читать книгу Dusk & Dust - Esteban Rodríguez - Страница 11

DOGS

Yowling, as if the space beneath our house bears a new one every night, they slither out, one by one against a pre-dawn haze of gnats and light, a pack of mutts with their younger mutts trailing close behind; the top of their muzzles ripe with mucus leaking from their eyes; their spines cloaked in ashen earth, and sprinkled bits of splintered oak gnawed by termites beneath the porch, that excavated den they’ve made their home. These are far from the Lassies trained for TV shows, the barnyard family pets, or workdogs guiding goats from the pasture in, but strays exhausting every place they’ve ever been, like nomads trudging through some bible desert, still without a place to go, aware that every inch of here is bruised with thirst, and that the ground brands their feet with scalded mounds of dirt. But I am just a boy, squatting low, crawling far beneath the steps, placing slabs of ham against the broken bricks, concerned their feral habits haven’t fully formed, that they’ll wander all day without a thing to eat, no bone or chow placed inside a bowl; that the mothers of the pack will return with teats still leather-black, wary that as I belly out this wooden womb, they’ll have to worry about another mouth that isn’t full.