Maybe This is What There Is To Do
With the dog's breath howling in the labyrinth of my ear
with the wet of his nose plastering my hair
with my own heartbeat punching through
stomach-skin
the dark moles pulsing like punctuation
next to bright cherry angioma
Moments like these, I catch myself being a body, despite my deepest efforts,
wild and working, doing just about anything to
keep this human thing going.
And maybe that's what is ours to do
to go on, oblivious, with our decapitated careers
and then, occasionally, to look,
and see how animal it is
to do any of it.
How dog, really, is this panting in pilates class
how wild these feelings that rush through me
when you say yes
or no, unexpectedly
With the knees always swelling down the stairs
and with the solar plexus sending its daily fire
up and through my throat
before pressing send
to witness the body as if it is actually here
and to be with it—to be both dog and poet
—dog-poet—
slobbering in silence,
then pawing at the keyboard with
untrimmed nails,
snorting like a bear at truth
untamed.
To gaze at navel between stanzas and
To marvel at heart-fist still punching through
same skin
to notice the tan line on foot when summer comes
Even now, look how my fingers on the keyboard
quiver like a cold dachshund
and how my shoulders, eyeing the end,
rise like hawk wings readying for the landing.
I am less civilized than my shepherd by now,
who has given up on his morning walk,
and is dreaming with harness & leash by my feet
of Wolfier times.
Now, maybe what’s left to do is
leave this mess behind,
lace up our boots and walk out in the high heat of June
then sit on a wet patch of grass in the shade of a willow
lined by daisies, buzzing with flies.
Until something inside of us says keep going,
and we get up,
and we do.
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