Shadow
Photo © Christina Lovin
SHADOW
I want to write my poems like a dog
lives life: muzzle deep in the rot
of flesh and hair found in a far field:
to wallow joyously in the stench
of death—its hard remains worried
until clean and white—and read the shit piles
of life as if they were the New York Times
or gateways to enlightenment. Stupid
in my love—all eyes and tongue and tail—
I would head into the path of fate ears pricked,
uncomplaining when its wheel rolls over me.
Just glad to have had this day, this bit of sun
and shadow, some hint of game on the breeze,
a momentary hand resting on my head,
a name to be called.