Letters from the Dead
How to translate into words?
In dream, you cross your paws, primly,
German-Shepherd odalisque on the couch,
and ever-so slightly cross your eyes
at my human blindness. Caprice – sweet
Prissy. You could see in the dark
through tangles of poison-ivy, berry-
bramble, creeper. I was lost as a flower-
picker in Virginia woods; as a man
wandering the Blue Ridge, a boy
flash-flooded away.
I keep a compendium of names
of the missing. But how
could you disappear so soon? Dark-eyed
to see beyond – what
have you found on the other side?
Dogs don’t write letters home.
But sometimes, by caprice of night,
the moon makes you real again –
a young, live seeker-
dog running across the page.
~ Taylor Graham
from her collection What the Wind Says (www.lummoxpress.com)
