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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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