Book of Dog. Cleopatra Mathis

arranged it so as to see the colors as they dried,

       the veins rising, shuddering with my breath.

       But now, this ant has found its way

       under my immaculate shack and climbed the pilings,

       through gaps in the floorboards to one leg

       of my writing table, and up that to the surface

       plane of three cracked boards, where it scurries

       to the moth: my creature.

       Pulled from the sea with my own hands—mine, I think,

       because I believe my very will can save it.

Song of If-Only

       If only the bird had been alive, not something dead

       delivered onto sand; and not this packed cold sand,

       where nothing moves even slightly, no blow-holes,

       no scurrying things, and if only the shore birds’

       seaweed nests, that little piping, hadn’t been smothered

       by a freak spring tide. Now the plovers must begin again:

       eggs and hatching, the mothers’ fake writhing

       when they see me, squawking and dragging their wings

       to save their chicks. Oh save me

       from the whole painstaking work of early June—

       this blowing fifty degrees, no sand bed of heat

       in some dune bowl’s hollow, no love,

       and on this outer beach Euphoria

       just the name of the shack I want in this driving rain.

       And if only it would stop, shut itself up for good—

       this off-key if only that goes on singing,

       like some deranged child, repeating.

Dead Fox

       We pretended to know nothing about it.

       I withdrew to childhood training: stay out

       of swampy undergrowth, choked edges.

       This was around the time

       we were too cruel to kill the mice we caught,

       leaving them in the Have-a-Heart trap

       under the sun-burning bramble of rugosa.

       But moving up the trail, we caught a glimpse

       right at the start: the fox just over the hillock

       on the dune-side slope, spoiling

       the grass-inscribed sand. Neither of us looked—

       it seemed best to back away.

       On the dune’s steep side

       we surveyed what we’d come for: ocean’s

       snaking blues beyond the meadow, the silvered

       blade-like wands lying down. Lovely enough

       to hold ourselves to that view.

       But the currents of an odor wafted in and out,

       until the sweep of smell grew wider, wilder.

       The heat compounded, and ugliness

       settled its cloud over us, profound as human speech,

       although by then we were not speaking.

Chipmunk in the Pool

       Chippy fallen in, little head bobbing,

       and from the second floor, dark in their conversation,

       she runs to rescue. No handy net to lift it out, no

       chipmunk-sized anything, so she throws

       her shirt, a raft of sorts to scamper on,

       too heavy, too close—how could she not know this,

       her usual way of jumping in before thinking—

       and it flips, goes under.

       The broom, she’s calling now to the silent house,

       bring me the broom.

       The creature fights itself up, and she leans

       to grab the baby belly and soaked heft,

       pluck it out to the air where it gasps a little, chokes out

       water from a gaping mouth. She massages with one finger

       where the lungs might be. More droplets gurgle up;

       mouth to mouth is needed

       along with pumping. But she can’t, not without

       some small opening to blow through,

       safe distance from her own mouth, which

       has released a little drool, working in sympathy

       as if she can convince this thing to be saved—

       how hard can it be in the tame backyard pool?

       And why can’t he come out of the house

       with some other idea, that tumbler of straws

       plain on the kitchen counter; why

       for God’s sake, won’t he come out and help?

Their Chamber

       She was thinking of his explanation

       as a kind of Möbius strip, circling

       endlessly, seamlessly reversing and twisting

       to reveal the underside, on-going words. Lost in it,

       she reached down into the limited

       rough space between the bed and the wall,

       and her hand came up skinned, the top layer

       from knuckle to wrist peeled away.

       This was part of her usual vigilance—

       He would spill something, lose something, and she’d

       rush to wipe away, find the missing,

       like this automatic retrieving of his sock—

       Beaded with blood, she examined

       the wide scrape in addition

       to sunspots, moles, the wormy down-under,

       raised-vein look of her skin. Another thing on her body

       to heal outside, while inside

       running through her, the ribbon of his words:

       no, then yes, yes, and no again. Oh what did he want

       and how could she manage to wait

       for the circling to stop—

       how could she keep still?

When She Spoke, He Closed His Eyes

       So she tried to disappear, obliged

       by his own disappearing, becoming

       who