The Double Leash

Blizzard to lilac. Dandelion

to leaf. Endless

variation of seasons I note

in passing, smells

I cannot smell: rotting

gardens, feces, musk of cat.

These two

run in front of me, golden

shoulder to patchwork, heads

lifted or lowered into

scent, tongues lolling. Ears

damp with their own

spittle and each other's

tell me, tethered a pace behind,

their journey's epic: tipping

forward to the familiar or

stranger's distant yap; angling

to my breathing, whispered

praise, my slightest

suggestion.

Ignored.

The shepherd

throws herself into

any whirring wheel, to herd

the neighbor's tractor mower or

the UPS truck's packets

home; pulling her back,

the golden's oblivious

ballast, instinct heading

always for the gutter's

deepest puddle, her own way

within the forked leash's

one-foot range. As we pass,

the clans set up

their barking, as if we

were news, gathering center

of a congenial warning

din—mine answer with

disturbances of pace, an extra pull

or lollop, grins thrown

slant-eyed over shoulders

until one hears a call

she can't ignore, surrenders

to baying's ferocious

joy moving through

muscle and bone. Moving

storm, storm's eye: happy

universes whirl in their skins

as I do in mine. Unknowable,

their fate. Mediums between

foreign principalities, they're tied

to me, to each other, by my will,

by love; to that other realm

by song, and tooth, and blood.