Black Hound
for James and Leah Den Boer


would damn near rip your arm off
the leash

either
acrylic or leather

Ugh! that mutt
‘s barking at night

won’t be stopped
or stopped-up

let the man who says he can tame the brute
come tonight

put the leash on
go

for a walk
but instead be yanked to flight


* * *


The Boxer
for William Wantling

The cell was tile, iron
and concrete
it didn’t matter
it meant nothing
so that the walk here
on lineated ground
limps from that shiv
done so long ago
now the lips crack
bloody from the night cold

but for this dog on
the other side of an iron gate
watches the street
rocks from paw to paw
how his thick neck holds that head
how brown eyes hold brown eyes
how the nothing that bears us out
from the nothing that is born
to not a bark not a word