“Fetch”

The marrow it’s this;
that night after night I dream
you alive, dream you clawing
up and through the snarl
of spade-lopped roots and loam,
through the cairn beneath the pine
in a bower of pines, a wildwood
of pines, beneath a wheeling moon—
shaking from your body
the tattered blanket, shaking
from your throat the collar
of blood—the ball
in your mouth where I left it,
your coat wet where I kissed it—
breaking through underbrush
onto the trail, tracking it back
to the tire-rutted road—
loping now, running now—
your nostrils flared
and full of the world—
ignoring the squirrel,
ignoring the jay, ignoring
the freeway’s litter of bones—
night nearly as dead as you
bolt for the lane,
up the drive, into the yard—
panting now, breathing now—
racing from door to window to door,
scratching at the screen,
whining at the glass, the ball
is in your mouth—Lo,
wouldn’t I shake from this
sweet gnawed dream to rise
and fetch you in
with the light that returns
me day after day,
and takes you again and again.

“Fetch” by Jim Simmerman, from Dog Music, Edited by Joseph Deumer and Jim Simmerman

For Katherine, for Victoria, for Mary and for all who have lost their beloved and are now living in The Quiet.