Sunday Poem

COUNTRY DOG

real-estate baron,

in a field he is

the incarnation of field.

his cutting, racing

figure eights, feints and

about turns in tall grass

a hockey game against joy

summoned or coaxed to the scratched

back door he carries

seeds, the smell of wind and

the temperature’s date stamp

in his fur. burrs and leaping

insects latched with the barbed

malice of a computer virus

sheriff of the domestic lowlands

each half-floppy ear a catcher’s mitt

for the distinct plunk of itinerant food.

paratrooping carrots, sandwich emigrants

gravity’s scraps

desire on four legs he

animates the rooms

routinely visits the provinces

of nook and expanse

leaving warm oblongs of floor,

tumbleweeds of hair

in angled stretch, diagonal

sprawl or insistent stand

he is enormous, equine and then

enfolded, a black muff

beseeching both my hands

or a comma curled,

life’s hairy pause

the winter in his beard

is my discontent

the clicking ratchet of one hip

or glaucoma’s indicting blue fingerprint

on each eye of my animal self.

mortality’s mute

shaggy ambassador

From Origins (2012) by Darryl Whetter.