June 11, 2024
Tina Higgins Wussow
Swagger
Henry just propped himself up, two paws on the kitchen floor, two more on the counter edge, and took in his mouth a nub of bread – the butt, the heel.
I am graced enough in this life that I do not need it, want it, or think of this piece beyond the quick conclusion that I am too good for bread butts.
When Henry came down from the counter with the butt in his mouth, I made a grunting noise meant to seem intimidating. His eyes flashed guilt or, rather, recognition that he had been caught. The hinge of his jaw went slack and the nub of bread fell to his paws.
There was a moment between us where he was testing me for kindness, for the potential of my heart’s generosity, as he hovered over his loot. But I rationally explained: Henry, I cannot let you have it, not when you take it with such arrogance, such entitlement, such swagger. We are supposed to be careful, to ask first, to deny ourselves, and then eat slowly.
But haven’t I been trying to teach Henry these skills since I brought him home many years ago? Why do I keep giving him a test he will never pass?
I put the nub in the compost and he went to his spot on the couch and I returned to my writing in the bright winter sun making shadows of the clutter across the dining room table and now I feel awful. I will bring him the bread butt and let him eat it on the couch. This is how generous I am. I see now that I was wrong to demand him shame and refuse him what I never even wanted in the first place.
Can you imagine? I threw it in the compost bin, a stinky pile of coffee grounds and eggshells rather than let him have what I never wanted.
I have become the dirtball out of a Steinbeck novel.
When I set the bread on the orange pillow just in front of his pouty mouth he gives it a little sniff, a little lick, and begins to eat rather slowly which is not like him. He doesn’t leap up and spin in a whirl of joy over the sudden shift in my reasoning. He seems bored with the bread like he’d rather be napping.
I don’t stay to watch him chew, rather I go back to my spot to finish the poem relatively satisfied, as he must be, that I am not completely undeserving of the sunlight that still shines across the page.
Tina Higgins Wussow is a writer of poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction. Her work has been published in a variety of local and national journals and her essays can be found on Substack. Tina is also a teacher, bookseller, and cafe owner living in Duluth, Minnesota with her husband & Clover the dog, CC the cat, and Paul the Goldfish.
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