The dog replied:
Let us begin with death
and the possibility of death
for this is the humid season
of atrocity and wonder
the starting point
is fear and desire
twisted together
inseparable vines
the assailable heart
and the available flesh
lashed to a skeleton raft
survivors from the carbon sea
shipwrecked in a stinking swamp.
Ten thousand tiny concertinas squeak
in the buzzing, clicking, calling dark:
Who are you? Here we are.
Here I am. Who are you?
Where are you? Here we are.
Who are you? We will feed your daily flesh.
I cannot sleep. Peel back your skin and eat.
When we found him,
the wind had chewed off the tip of his nose
and granules of sand scoured his cheeks,
pitted into the tattered edges of skin,
appearing at first, as pin-pricks of sweat
glinting in sun, and for a moment
I thought he was alive
until I saw
the exposed skin of his arms
ticked with blossoms of flesh.
Had he stayed with his plane,
he would have died anyway,
swallowed like scraps for sogs
when dunes shifted over
the one remaining wing
and through the shattered-open eyes of flight.
What could a Jersey boy know
of feral wind and sand,
the elemental shifting of horizons
across time
measured in heartbeats.
