The American Poetry Review, November 1st, 2000
Four poems
Pets
My three dogs follow me wherever I go.
I should name them for my hungers:
Worry Wart, Run Away, Never Wake Up.
I should tell them There's no place like home,
that Life is beautiful and precious,
and What will be will be.
But that's what I was told by my parents
when I hungered. Like the ancient Chinese
who fished by tying nooses around the throats
of cormorants they kept.
Now I pay tribute to my hungers.
I unplug the hole in the fence to honor breaking out;
I let sleeping dogs lie to protest the indignities of living,
I go outside the house and bang on the wall...
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