The Home Salon

No skilled pet groomer am I
so this is an exercise of
laboured love conducted with
great delicacy; no professional
shave-and-a-haircut easefully
accomplished with speed and
aplomb. No, this effort is
time-consuming where patience
is a definite asset, for the subjects
of my study in canine hairdressing
and their trust in me, wielding
worrying shears. Their reaction
to my intentions swift and
visceral once the tools of
toilette are assembled and
clearly interpreted. My murmurs
of comforting ease unheeded
as I haul first one then the other
out of their futile hiding places,
too well known. Time trickles by
as a succession of scissors see
cautious duty and fluffy black
hair flies in the open-air breeze
until each painstaking involuntary
shedding is complete and the
unhappy but compliant prisoner
to the trim is released, shorn and
slighter, as close a facsimile to
fitness to appear tidily in the
public sphere as they ever will be, 
our two mischievous black imps.