Wednesday, March 6, 2019

TO THE DOGS

Though grateful
to share a scrap of day
or night together,

I wish
I could go where it is
you go after—

mind lying
wide open and redolent
as a shaggy field at high noon;

body parked and idle,
agreeable as
a wood-paneled station wagon

parked in a vacant
lot by the ocean;
mouth hanging so

cleanly open, unpolluted
by words. Sometimes, I call you
but you don't call yourself anything.

Some days I don't call myself
anything either—at least
not anymore.