Dale Champlin, Shawl, Collage, 2021
WHAT IS IT TO DIE LIKE A DOG?
To hear the owl’s soft feathers light
To smell the buzzard wing’s green cuisine
This morning I watched for ten minutes
From the upstairs bedroom window
An unknown neighbor’s dog from up the hollow
Its front legs & paws
Like a shovel digging Scooping
Small consecutive footprints of dirt
Flying & rising behind it in a mound
It thought it was going to dine on Cat
Which I had buried yesterday
Its thin ribs & tiny heart
Juicy hindquarters
Perhaps an ear or a pink tongue
I knocked my knuckles hard
On the windowpane three times
As if I wanted to enter
The Palace of Nothing
Watched its shadow float Licking the dark
Green grass up Over the hill’s ridge & vanish
I knew exactly which wet stone
I will have to pry
From the creek bed &
Lug in my red wheelbarrow
Like a padlock
Up the bumpy rock-strewn hill
I knew exactly which stone
___________________________
John McKernan