I can see his eye gleaming,
a black marble, wet with secrets,
through that careful gap in the fence,
his face a pressed mystery note.
He watches me without blinking,
a guardian of his fenced world,
holding his own quiet parliament
over the simplest afternoon breezes.
This is the language of suspicion,
an ancient dialect of canine focus—
every cracked twig, every shuffle of leaves
cataloged in his patient, furred archive.
Does he wonder about my life, too?
The clink of my coffee spoon, the pacing
upstairs, the crinkle of a morning paper—
or does he only know his own curiosity?