2005
there are all sorts of life in strife:
at the giant grocery store
there are among the banded and resigned lobsters
one whose claws remain in tension and
his stick-like antennae are in the up-raised position
there is a blackbird crossing the aisles
from dairy to bread
desperate to find his way out
at home
there is my dog struggling up the stairs
nervous as that self-same bird criss-crossing the
grocery aisles
2006
there was no dog this winter
there was no slipping on the ice
there was no ice stuck between her pads
no crashing across the hard-froze top of the night-old
snow
there was not the black warmth of my long-time dog
nor cold nose
nor laying in snow as i charged up my bike
no extra chicken necks and extra-pained hips
no pattering, no hesitating in the ice-slick foyer tile
no silent pain from my ever-silent dog
whose every claw clench on the hard-froze sent shocks
into her hips
and she
not a word
and she
not a tear
and she
walked off not
she did not abandon
she did not retreat to an under-tree to die
she lay under the glass desk
her chin on my feet, said
“ you know the medicines are insufficient …
“ you know it is my soiling the bed “
and i, i am so ashamed, please forgive me
but i do enjoy the window while you at
work ”
“ and the stairs are full of scares
for i see only dimly now
and the depths are not defined and my
eyes, well, they trick me
“and i wish i could lead dog like i did
in williamsburg woods biking at night
between the traps
in the lone tree woods with sadie and her
blue-heeler through nettles
in the mayfair woods through the heather
and duck muck
and Old Rag where i would tear, chase any
bear from you
at the Sods where the dirt waller was so
dry and dust
in Winchester where the flowers were
jump over-my-head
“and you said you’d be burned to ash
and i ask for me the same
“you said ‘spread me at Kearsarge’
i ask for mine the same, with yours, in the
same gust
so we may venture the peaks together
sleep with many-hands horses, with
wolves and swim in ice
there were no dog beds and foam-this and padded-that
for your prominent bones
no heated blankets scattered about the bed and
living rooms
there was no holding of your firm paws
no kissing of your velvet muzzle and asian eyes
there were no handshakes
no gentle clenching your teeth on my hand at arrival
home
or arrival of grandmother or other friends
no mixing the meals and the medicines, no x-rays
and needles, no massage or chinese herbs
no swimming in harness with the shake until your
tail
there was not your sitting ‘midst the din of my
drumming
no you long-sitting beside the crash-boom-bang
as you did, as if it made you happy for you
always smiled then
remember when
i used to kick the drums over after each session?
i yelled driving you into the corner puppy you for
eating the tops off my combat boots?
you ran behind my beach bike, off-lead at only
months-old along the road to Virginia’s house?
and you should have died
and i should have been shamed
and what a fool i was, for i did not know
what i would have lost
i swore like filth and fury and you to corner
gone, thinking yourself at fault?
and i am so inadequate to understanding you my dog
with you i am over my head
and i need the help of our friends to see you
for as cataracts came over your eyes
so are the same cataracts over those mine these
many years
and i struggle to understand all those about
whom
i am usually wrong
in my life
like you, my magic dog
who even in your goneness left
packages for the unwrapping
and i wish i could have taken the plaques
from your back
wish i could have straightened your
spine and splinted your shifty hips
and just held everything in place
as you did me from the moment
we met
would that i could learn your dignity
that i could carry myself as did you
that i had at last learned when to snap
and when to smile
and when to wheel all teeth
and kneel all belly
and when to sit my violence
down
and when to stand up
and when to bristle and ridge my back
and hear threats at night
and know how to shake hands with my
teeth
and teeth-grab young’uns with no
breaking of the skin