Javier Sandoval

From Your Forest Dog

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2023: VOL. 38.

Amor, the moon (your favorite silver, pocket mirror)
isn’t above the black trees anymore.
This night I’ve tucked it in, hidden,
buried it among the dark-scaled roots, and as I huffed,
it revealed myself smearing my own snout and eyes with mud.

Amor, if I weren’t a moss-matted forest dog,
I’d read your book out loud for you after you scoot beside me in bed—
I’d sit behind you and rub your shoulders rather than nose out from the covers
to slump my sodden, black pelt onto the couch;
I’d grow our love like an orchid rather than paw it into the ground,
on the windowsill, sniff and bow,
steal away.

Amor, please remember this face you love
is just thorn-snagged fur, cracked canines in a broken jaw,
and brackwater eyes. You could snooze your alarm to cuddle with a man
rather than this mangled mass of past boot-kicks to the chest,
of muscle-restrained groans, this old dog too tired to give you a wet nose-kiss good morning;

all you learn from me is how much I distrust everything
sniffed along my path; I rest across the stoop, semi-guarding the cottage,
mostly disgruntled by all I see, all I hear in the wind over the toppled
barbed-wire fences; but you come out through the screen
and work your red, french tips up my bristled neck. And I furl
into your arms, as into the den of a tree.

Amor, when you duck out of our cottage
to trace my paw prints through the dark pines,
leave my old leather jacket in our closet, my scuffed boots by the front door;
when the disc of your light comes across my grizzled bulk,
don’t worry as I gaze back at you, stunned silent.
It’s not the glare of your light.
but the sight of this other strange and marvelous creature
coming to find me.