Dog Dreaming

                                                                                                     His leg twitches: he is mounting a bitch,                                                                                                      or devouring a rabbit in a field of rhododendrons.                                                                                                       Or he sees Ezekiel’s spinning wheel; the long                                                                                                       stride of a young DiMaggio: he now knows                                                                                                      something rumored by other dogs is real.                                                                                                       You are not amused: angels bring messages from God                                                                                                      to your kind, for real, and you are wake dreaming                                                                                                      the transports of a dog. But you are yet master:                                                                                                      as if he heard, his leg stops twitching.                                                                                                       Someone drops a spoon.                                                                                                       You mouth, involuntarily, don’t, don’t.                                                                                                      But his eye opens anyway, to a room with flesh                                                                                                      but less carnality, with spirit but less divinity,                                                                                                      to his constant love, glorious you.                                                                                                       He seems happy, but you a little less . . .                                                                                                      You wish you a little less, a little lower than human,                                                                                                      an obedient, heated, unelusive mastiff.                                                                                                       He senses something off, head turned at you.                                                                                                       In lieu of such incarnation, of which you are incapable,                                                                                                      you resolve it is time to get him that saved, savory bone.                                                                                                      Things seem righted, and he is ecstatic:                                                                                                      he has his bone, and is subject to his love,                                                                                                      who has again become the subject,                                                                                                      lost in his musing, like his God,                                                                                                       with something like regret at making his poem.