I saw the sun set
between my toes
and the moon rise
with just one eye
while my mutt Daisy
looked at me sideways
and sighed like maybe
she thinks I’m lazy
and I thought, ****’t
it’s a shame when a man’s
dog makes him feel bad.

Our Dog Howling at Sunset

At sunset, the dog howls at sirens in town.
If he were snowbound in Talkeetna,
A hundred miles from nowhere,
What would he howl at instead?

I saw my husband trudging through the frost,
His blue jacket half-tinted orange and red,
“I don’t like the way you sound,” he said
As he left, deserting one who was already lost.

If I were a thousand miles from him now,
Listening to the wolves’ mournful cries,
And my beloved shunning me as he does now,
Would I pretend to believe my lover’s lies?

Or, instead, would it be enough to exist
Where the short summer dies on winter’s grist,
And true love’s a dream born on a dreamer’s mist,
And the one to stay with is the one you’ve just kissed?

If I lived in a land so cruel and hard,
Would I be bargaining with my soul?
If love’s short date were but a moon’s silver shard,
Would he be a passing thought, and my son the whole

Of any future we had scattered out on the snow,
Or caught in the rime-bound trees?
Would I see then what I already know—
That his future lies with himself and not me?

As our wolf howls a timeless wail to the air
I can listen and guess at its season.
I can comfort myself it will always be there,
Beyond human hopes, beyond reason.

Far wiser, the black-furred hound, than I,
To sing out his ancient song.
Waiting, watching, as we struggle and die,
Only to pass his wisdom along.

Waiting, hoping as he does for a touch,
He is made to think that he asks too much--
Waiting for a kind word or loving hand--
Wild and alone, in humanity’s bleak land.

A southern writer once lamented the lack
Of courage in humankind,
And suggested we borrow the strength we see
In the branches of an olive tree.

Yet there’s more courage in the dog-wolf’s cry,
Penned out on our city-cropped lawn,
As if he knows the grief of my son and I
When the man we both love is gone.

“Could we not as well” take a lesson from him,
Our wild and loyal friend?
To howl out our sorrow and loneliness,
Though the pain might never end?

Now, in the twilight I hear my lover return,
With no greeting to me, and I burn
For the summer’s newborn passion I recall.
The twilight wolf’s mourning tells it all:

That we never will have what we had before
That love can die just as well as it’s born,
That a child is the only one who restores
What is lost to the lonesome, the wolves, the forlorn.


July 6, 2001

-on his painting of the dog

It's such a strange place here,
we're always ready to go.
But when we think of leaving,
it seems we just don't know.

Did someone tell us to linger?
Was it death that asked us
to wait for its eager return?

This sulky sullen guard,
this safe and sorry heart
will steadily keep on beating
until the night's black start.

Did someone tell us to pray?
Was it life itself perhaps
that came to us and went away?

When the snow melted
it took chunks of the road in its thaw.
Potholes sunk
where the water slurpped
away the under-soil.
Silence left with the white
now more venture outside
overstocking supplies
"we'll n'er run out again,"
one swore.
And cats are back spraying,
and dogs barking in confusion.
And the crocus buds to remind me
nothing has really changed
in all this change

When I walk towards the dog his eyes follow my every step.
Eyes  blue like hard candy. Lips curled above white fangs
smile at me with a smirk of someone who has awakened
from a bad dream.

I think I hear him sigh and as I kneel beside him, his cold eyes catch some light from the pulsateing drum bar sign.
"What do you see?" I ask. "What can you feel?"

Inside the bar I order a shot of bourbon and as I put the bourbon to my lips I see the dog standing on a barstool next to the fireplace. His lips are contorted tightly above its teeth and his eyes pulsate red light. After staring in disbelief the impossibility of situation dies. His eyes flash quickly several times. He knows me .

I order 2 shots of bourbon and walk over to were the mutt was sitting. He is not there and I'm beginning to wonder if I have imagined the dog when I feel something ice cold rubbing against my leg,  I look down. The mutt winks at me. I crouch down to put the glass of whiskey in front of him. Then I touch my glass to his.

"I've learned to moan without making a sound. " I tell my friend as his stiff tongue stubbornly licks up the bourbon.

He slowly turns his big, ****** head towards me. "Out of the lowest the highest reaches his peak,"  his hoarse voice whispers. Causiously I stroke his head. He growls but it is not too menacing. It becomes more like a contented humming. The faster I caress the louder the droning becomes. His eyes dilate and I become mesmerized watching them grow from a warm yellow radiance to a terrifying hot white.

And with a vicious snap the dog sinks his teeth into my hand.

I **** my hand loose. Quickly I stand up and punt kick the little ******* into the fireplace. My wounds are deep but bloodless. A cold numbness  travels up my arm, into my chest, and down to my toes.

And just when I 've lost all feeling. I begin to burn. The fire is burning me from the inside out, so no one knows how I feel.
Instead, I stare at the dog in the fire place as steam rises from his head. His eyes flash at me three or four times.

I give him the finger.

When I walk into the poolroom, I put quarter on the table. It is a crowded room of tired faces unable to radiate any light of their own.

"The fire has consumed me. The true believer of snow and sad faces, I am a shell."

I am confused, frightened. I hear the words as if they are my thoughts. But then across the room hidden in a dark corner I discern the silhouette of the mutt. His eyes are shut but I can faintly see his subtle smile.

It's my game so pretending as if nothing has happened I select a pool stick. A tall man in a leather jacket comes over and tells me it is his game.

we argue.

And the dog's voice groans, "No matter what you dream it'll end in ashes or ice. Hit him with the pool cue." The next thing I know I'm slamming the pool stick into the man's face. Blood rushes from his wound. People rush from the shadows. Hands grab me. Punch and kick me. I'm dragged to the door and tossed into the gutter.

Semiconscious, sometimes dreaming, I roll over and face the dog.
From the shadows someone comes behind me, I try to roll over to see the voice but cannot.

"What does this world consist of?" The voice whispers into my ear. "Empty lots, a dead dog, and visions of the night."