Authority Challenged
My dog’s left rear leg
shoots out behind her.
She looks up, embarrassed,
then does her business as necessary.
The ring finger of my left hand
twitches toward the palm.
The dog and I are getting older,
but, in physical years,
she’s four decades my senior.
Neither of us is thrilled
with our bodies’ new senses of direction,
the independent actions of limbs,
but we’re not surprised,
both of us having always challenged authority
in one way or another.
C.S. Fuqua’s books include White Trash & Southern ~ Collected Poems ~ Vol. I, Hush, Puppy! A Southern Fried Tale (children’s picture book), Rise Up (short fiction collection), The Native American Flute: Myth, History, Craft, Trust Walk (short fiction collection), The Swing: Poems of Fatherhood, Divorced Dads, and Notes to My Becca, among others. His work has appeared in publications such as Main Street Rag, Pudding, Dark Regions, Iodine, Christian Science Monitor, Cemetery Dance, Bogg, Year’s Best Horror Stories XIX, XX and XXI, Amelia, Slipstream, The Old Farmer’s Almanac, The Writer, and Honolulu Magazine.