Gil Hoy

Man’s Best Friend

If she had only gotten up
to walk the barking dog

on that early pitch-black morning,

then I would have had time
to check my tax return,

would have caught my mistake,
wouldn’t have been audited,

wouldn’t have had to tell
that little white lie,

wouldn’t be sitting in this cold
damp cell—

while it is still dark outside,
and my wife is still sleeping.

Gil Hoy is a Boston poet and trial lawyer who likes to write poems about little things that his wife didn’t do that kept him out of trouble.