HE has eaten something
     again.

Something long this time,
     and elastic.

Our friends are concerned.
They remember, the block party picnic,
Butterball incident,
of late October
     2003.

An Ace Bandage, says the vet,
could ''accordion up'' nicely in his
     doggy gullet.

An Ace Bandage, I think,
will likely ''accordion up'' painfully in his
     doggy gullet.

     -- and expensively.

But not nicely.
Definitely not
     nicely

However,
I am not a veterinarian or,
     a constipated golden retriever.

Or constipated at all
     thank you.

So I will follow the doctor's orders.
And I will spend the next seventy-two hours
     on patrol.
Seventy-two hours examining each new
     steaming pile.

Diligently,
I will follow him through the mounds of
front lawn autumn leaves.
Rubber gloved and
     anxious.

Golden Retrieverly,
he will do what is natural.
Romping and lolling in the sun.
Eating sticks and licking
what he should
(and a cat would)
     not.

Both of us hoping with each new
sniff, hunker, hunch, grunt and yelp,
that this too
-- like parachute pants, a kidney stone, or Tom Cruise--
     shall pass.