Sport 40: 2012
postscript to the kreisau dogs
postscript to the kreisau dogs
the one who says poems are like these dogs
in the thick of the village caught in their own
echo in the scraping and waiting at half moon
doggedly marking out the territory of language
doesn’t know you—you bellowing hell-hounds
you cassandras of sound in the back of beyond
for behind my back you set out to stitch together
what is word and what is calf into an insolent bite
as if this leg of mine were only a page
and the order of things an exchange:
my boot here still bears the imprint of your
teeth—four prize pinches from that clinch
yes you deserve the verse that comes after
so the world sure dogs poetry at its heel