Escalation by Claire Scott | Streetlight Magazine

Photo of woman walking dog — Photo by Eric Ayon on *Unsplash*

I am so sick of walking past the cute little signs that say

please clean up after your dog. really? do we want our ivy,

our pachysandra, our Vinca covered in pee and poop?

do we want our perfectly manicured lawns used as toilets?

no possible way to clean up all the mess with a plastic bag

what about Keep Your Canine Off My Grass You Dimwit

or No Pooping on my Property Under Penalty of Perjury

I yell at my frowsy neighbor, who insists her stupid, practically legless

dog prefers my ground cover, won’t go anywhere else. I bought

a ‘female friendly’ Glock 43, disappointed it didn’t come in pink,

although it’s quite cute, with a snub nose and easy trigger.

I stick it into my jeans and hunker down on the front porch,

waiting till she shows up with her vile Corgi pooch. I wave

the gun, she calls the cops. the next week she stops by again,

but this time she is holding an Ruger Precision Rifle, pointing it

straight at me while her dog poops and they strut off together,

without cleaning up the putrid mess. I notice she has short legs too.

I am going to look into semi-automatic weapons or maybe simply toss

a bomb into her house, making sure the dumb dog is inside.

I ordered The Terrorist Handbook from Amazon for $14.99.

I think I may build a wall.

Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and Healing Muse, among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.