LISTENING TO THE DOG
It’s been a bad old year,
just listen
to the news, you can’t even trust
a painkiller anymore.
Just look at this binder full
of drafts that might become
a poem.
But the dog is whining at the door
so I turned the knob
and felt the wooosh of wind
in my face, my dog full-sail
out of the doldrums,
the straits of blank paper,
the dead-horse latitudes.
Head up, nose to the news
of a brisk breeze rising, my dog
leads me out into
the beautiful whole
speechless world.We’ll walk it
without a word.
