Augustus

One Bark Away

Threesome, twosome, to one bark away

From an empty dish under a limp leash

Leaving horizontal days past

Pulling me about the riverfront;

And back to an empty house

Where warning snouts

Filtered strangers without

 

Walls, where four eyes bathed

Near the fireplace

While the ones closed in my lap

Beneath the tender scratch

Of a hand that led them all

By fingered command -

Sit. Stand. Heel. Crawl.

 

To the night memories close as lungs

Collapse and two eyes above a warmed whimper and mine

Gather the dull gaze of a door whose pending chime

Startles one last weak, troubled, muffled, bubbled Bark.

 

 

 

Augustus / Folsom / October 2016