Song of My Dog
O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
and I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing.
-“Song of Myself,” section 6
My dog says What is the carpet? I say Fetch!
not knowing how to answer.
As she fetches her ball back to me,
I pat the cushioned ground, and her nails
crochet through its loops and twists
with the full stride of her hinds.
I do not know it any better than she,
who lays all day among its knotted pelt,
its twirling thumbs. I do not notice
the occasional bug that skulks
around its great stalks,
but she can stare for whole minutes
at the slightest movement.
Now she is overdosing on the smell
of a crumb dropped two weeks ago
from the edge of the coffee table.
Now it seems she is really on to something:
She muffles her breath with great sniffs of joy.
Carpet like the handkerchief of the Lord,
she muzzles her dripping nose.
She rolls and rolls like a tongue mid-yawn. She sits
up straight like a jaw snapped shut. She naps.
And outside, she lays among the leaves
of grass, hopeful green stuff woven not unlike
the carpet of her home, though she’s never asked
what grass is.
Her flank outstretched,
she tans her hide. She raises
her pads in praise to the sun,
that big bright fetch that goes always on.
And to nap outside, she thinks,
is different, and luckier.
