One more of these.
And then as I said, I'll close with something else.
"The Art of Distance 3."
"They shade the torso from behind the nape,
across the shoulder to the center chest,
taking away exactly the normal rough and adjacent
sable winter-thickened fur.
"Making, when she crouches at my feet,
the joint and sinew discernible under the startled skin,
as in those close-up photos from the village,
as if she were hunched above us like a slack gazelle.
But when she's sleeping on her side,
her neck extended might be the slack gazelle.
Fifty-seven stitches strike from the spine inside the sheltering
ridge of the collarbone.
Down to where the trachea enters alone,
their puckered punctuated seam gathering
what something split apart.
Some creature cornered in the woods
or field, no trophy, no raw meat except her own, no carcass,
pinions now beneath her paws.
Only the wretched quilt, torn, and stained.
And obedient courteous dog, she is abashed to pee indoors.
She doesn't squat.
She stands with her head low like a whipped horse
as the gush puddles the floor.
And even though or because mostly when I touch her,
it is to apply the many therapies prescribed,
pills down her throat, hot compress on the draining wound,
or to smooth the palate of her lying in.
She neither whimpers loudly nor draws back.
Therefore, she seems not only dutiful but grateful, too,
as though the touch conveyed a recognition, a bond,
if not of pain, in dignity.
Compassion not for another but for oneself,
which makes my hand enact a tenderness,
like the rough warm tongue that lifts the weak one plea."