human poem 

there are too many hours in the morning.
we put on our sugar faces 
& try to cut enough wood to last the night.
i tell my dog i promise that one day
we'll move somewhere with a huge fence
& nothing but woods around us.
i have kept most of my promises.
we left the city & then we left the city
& then we left the city. i walked her
down by the water & threw spells in the current. 
now we stand in the bitter december bite.
the first snow spits geese ghosts 
down on our heads. she tell me 
she wants to be an owl & i tell her that
i do too. sometimes we see creatures through
the slats in the fence. beasts stopping 
at our little house as they roam the corn fields.
i ask her if she remember that one time she
broke free of her leash in the fields
behind my parents' house. i chased her.
i called her and she just kept going.
i ask, "where did you think you would 
end up?" she answers only by saying,
"sometimes you get summoned."
i too have been summoned. a train.
a bowl of mints. the night we ate
sweet potato together until we got sick. 
i ask my dog to promise that she loves me.
she laughs. she tells me that once
in a dream she was running, trying 
to catch up with me. all she wanted
was to be at my heel. i take a shovel
to a cloud. make a secret place for us there.
i point to it & i say, "if you are ever lost,
go there." she does not promise.
instead, we keep walking. chase bones
& she grabs one & chews it with her eyes closed.