Today If I Could

Today if I could

I’d lay the palm of my hand

against the face of the dog

who bit me savagely

when I was four

today if his teeth in their yellow’d

vein

if his tongue could taste something other

than blood if I understood why

his tail moved the way it did maybe I’d be

able to move away

in time maybe later we could’ve been

friends right? big as me we'd've seen

people fall down drunk in front

of us and hold their broken bones we'd've

watched them back

out of the driveway without

looking we'd've seen the animals limp

to the grass in the ditches

and stay there and not wait a

day or day after day waiting

for the school bus the dead dog

in the ditch because it wasn’t

us not that day it wasn’t if I could

lay the palm of my hand

against the chest of this Tramp

and take his heart-

beat into me

and ease it like I’ve seen

surgeons ease the heart drawn out

to the open and coax and rub it like a new 

baby being 

born like a favorite

grandmother dying if I could

look into his dreams of that day he was

a sweet dog I know he didn’t mean

it lunging after backing up

and lunging and backing up and rough

and sunk into my face and the putrid

breath

the shit in piles all around the mud

puddles no house only a rumpled rough Army

blanket moth holes bored to death

holes hot August on the edge

of the blueberry  

field if I could

lay down with him and take it

again take it so he’d be a happy dog finally

I would