vivienne plumb

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Doggie Bones

A new year means nothing to a dog.
Sometimes these days I get money and time confused,
this is a dollar and this is an hour,
I have to re-educate myself.

A new bone means more to a dog
than a new year, and a new year means more to a human
than a bone, unless you are the Dog Man of Kalimantan
grown up with dogs and barking more than speaking.

When I was a child my father told me that a man
stood with a starting pistol which he let off at midnight;
this was later discovered to be a fabrication, as in truth
we all lie, the average human tells one lie a day

or even more. Lying has played a key role
in our evolution, a sophisticated cognitive ability
that makes us different from dogs, because if you ask them
where they hid their bone, they will show you.