Woof, Woof by Mark Williams

Woof, Woof

I’m taking a walk in August. It’s hot.
Did you know the guy who invented the heat index
was eighty-five years old at the time?
He felt like he was ninety, three degrees shy
of what my phone reads when I hear, woof, woof.

To my left, where normally two, sometimes three
small dogs run to their fence to greet me,
I only see a swing-set and two trees. Three blocks later,
woof, woof. A kind of muffled, beagle bark. Sad-like,
as though a dog were left out in this heat. Woof, woof.

By this time, I have walked six blocks. It seems
a dog is on my trail. One night, an owl attacked me.
DeeGee patched the claw marks on my head.
Could I be hearing hoots, not woofs?
Is something spooky going on?

Who knows what is possible?
Usually, I say, Hi, Dad or Hi, Mother
when a cardinal lands on my windowsill.
I wouldn’t put this past Dad. The first time he met DeeGee,
he was wearing giant, plastic ears. Woof, woof:

knee level, to my left again. But this time,
I notice that my phone, in my left hand,
is open to an app I haven’t used in years. One that,
when you swing your arm a certain way, as in walking, say,
goes a muffled woof, woof just loud enough

to drown out a father’s laughter.

*

Mark Williams’s poems have appeared in ONE ART, The Southern Review, New Ohio Review, Rattle, and other journals and anthologies. He is the author of the poetry chapbook, Happiness, and the book of poems, Carrying On. His fiction has appeared in Eclectica, Cleaver, Valparaiso Fiction Review, and Running Wild Press anthologies. He lives in Evansville, Indiana, with his wife, DeeGee.