Book of Dog. Cleopatra Mathis

      

      BOOK OF DOG

      ALSO BY CLEOPATRA MATHIS

      Aerial View of Louisiana (1980)

      The Bottom Land (1983)

      Guardian (1995)

      What to Tip the Boatman? (2001)

      White Sea (2005)

      BOOK OF DOG

       Poems

      Cleopatra Mathis

      © 2012 by Cleopatra Mathis

      FIRST EDITION

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquiries to:

      Managing Editor

      Sarabande Books, Inc.

      2234 Dundee Road, Suite 200

      Louisville, KY 40205

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Mathis, Cleopatra, 1947–

       Book of dog : poems / Cleopatra Mathis.

       p. cm.

       Includes bibliographical references and index.

       ISBN 978-1-936747-80-1

       I. Title.

       PS3563.A8363B66 2013

       811'.54—dc23

      2012029732

       Cover painting by Louise Hamlin.

       Cover and text design by Kirkby Gann Tittle.

       Manufactured in Canada.

       This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.

The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

       For Ellen Bryant Voigt

      “We live in a cage of light an amazing cage

      Animals animals without end”

      —Ikkyū

      Contents

I. CANIS

Answer

Ants Want My Yellow Moth

Song of If-Only

Dead Fox

Chipmunk in the Pool

Their Chamber

When She Spoke, He Closed His Eyes

Labyrinthitis

Canis

       Interstice

       1. Between Grief and Sorrow

       2. The Coldest Weather

       3. In the Woods

       I Will Be Good

       New Snow

       Essential Tremor

       In Lent

       Noise

       Over

      II. BOOK OF DOG

      III. ESSENTIAL TREMOR

       Magnificence

       Dune Shack

       Alone

       True Bug

       Salt Water Ducks

       Your Body Betrays You

       Holding On

       Bat

       Release

       Magnet

       Western Conifer Seed Bug

       The Wish

       Day Old Mice

       Transformation

       New Dog

       At Land’s End

       Revenant

       Survival: a Guide

       Acknowledgments

       Notes

       The Author

I. Canis

Answer

       When she came back from walking the dogs

       he would not look at her. Fast in his place on the couch

       he said whatever he said

       without urgency: she was like any other distraction.

       The set of his jaw, his lips,

       reminded her of a prisoner, of something trapped,

       or of the very old—anyone consigned to waiting

       and who has chosen to obey. Meanwhile, between them

       a hole had been dug, immense,

       all their words thrown in there,

       irretrievable. Or mangled,

       torn from their real meanings or intent, just given over

       to why should it matter now? And for her, now,

       replaced by the plain language of the dogs,

       who in a few syllables have everything to say.

Ants Want My Yellow Moth

       The one that came to me out of the sea, perfect

       serrated edges of its six wings,

       each seamless with tiny yellow feathers,

       the two bright center ones with fake black eyes

       pretending sight. Even drowned,

       the wings held tight, a simple knot at the top

       attaching them to the black worm of the body.

       What fragile stitchery the tide held up,

       carrying it in on a wave. I took it to