MY DOG

So many people with dogs in the park today,

it makes me wonder what kind of dog

I would have if I had a dog. I never had a dog.

When I was five, I was chased by a dog.

I think it was a bull terrier. It looked like the dog

on the old Our Gang comedies, but without

the black ring around its eye. It chased me

into the alley behind the apartment building.

I climbed up onto one of the iron bars

that connected the iron railing to the wall.

The dog kept barking as I kept my balance

as best I could, but I was five, and I lost it

and fell off and split my nose open.

Maybe this is why I never had a dog.

There’s one I like, a big black one.

The one that looks like a bear.

The one with the big brown doleful eyes.

The one that looks like the only reason

he gets off the couch is to go out to take a crap.

The one whose master is pulling hard on the leash

to get to cross the street into the park.

~~~

TO MY FEET

Sit up here, feet. 

Get a load off.

Come up here on the desk, 

across from me at legs’ length, 

so I can see you, 

so I can thank you properly.

I want to thank you properly for

taking me everywhere I have needed to go:

Up the steps of libraries and 

down the steps of basement restaurants. 

Across the avenues of cities and 

across the streets of small towns. 

Along the hallways of hospitals

and along the corridors of schools.

On the paths of gardens, the trails of forests,

the sands of beaches, the grass of meadows,

the polished floors of gymnasiums.

Sit up here, feet. 

How tired you look.

How weary you must be from carrying me

around on your shoulders all these years.

Rest a while, feet. 

Soon enough will people 

begin to whisper, hiding their mouths 

behind their hands, that I look like 

I have one of you in the grave.

~~~

 THE LOVER OF STONE

The lover of stone must be old,

for there is no such thing as a young stone.

The lover of stone must be strong,

for he must able to climb up the mountain

and the summit of the mountain

to find the beginning of stone.

And he must be able to climb down

the mountain again to the valley 

and to the bottom of the valley 

to find the ending of stone.

The lover of stone must be a genius at unrequited love.

He must be an connoisseur of the cold.

The lover of stone must be a saint,

for stone will no more return his love

than does God return that of the saint.

The lover of stone must be jealous.

He must be jealous of the water that loves stone to smooth.

And he must be jealous of the wind that loves stone to death.

~~~

EDWARD HOPPER, NIGHTHAWKS

I don’t wonder about them really,

the four in the coffee shop,

the nighthawks (if you count

the short-order cook as a nighthawk),

the man with his back to us, absorbed

in his own thoughts, or listening

to the conversation between the couple

and the short-order cook. I wonder 

about the family up there in that 

apartment above their own restaurant

across the street, in bed on this hot 

summer night with the windows open.

I wonder about the wife, who is

sobbing silently to herself, thinking

about the boyfriend who jilted her

back in high school because the man

with his back to us reminds her of him.

I wonder about the husband, who is 

smiling silently to himself because he 

is having a wet dream about the redhead.

I wonder about the teenage daughter,

who is now, in minute detail, planning her escape.

~~~

RODIN’S ADAM

He is not molded and formed from the clay.

He is wrenched out of it.

He is heaved up by the nape of the neck.

He is turned and twisted, a rusted screw.

He is standing but not fully.

He is conscious but only barely.

He is standing enough to know it is not for him.

He is conscious enough to know it is not for him.

The index finger of his right hand points downward.

It is the tongue of his body.

It says: Let me fall, let me sleep again.

It says: Return me to the earth before it is too late.