I hear a barking dog in the distance,
disconsolately, at night, frustrated
by its own inarticulateness,
lacking the words by which humans dictated
to it what could and could not possibly be,
not only in dog shows where some win prizes
for breeding and being a good doggie
but in dog pounds where a mutt realizes
it’s lost its master, an orphaned Toto,
and among the hydrants where it pees
there’s no Shakespearean pup, no “upstart crow,”
to articulate a dog’s epiphanies,
to use words as wings, to soar above,
skywriting a dog’s fidelity and love.
Robert Forrey
