SELVAGE

A Rottweiler is the shadow of an angel of vengeance.

The dog blows out a star’s light while scratching

its ribs. It augers the fallen leaves like tarot, decodes

the hot scales of a salamander as it burns through

a cave’s void. It watches the just-born children

like watching a dream it cannot wake from. When it claws

its own grave in a junkyard to the voice of Bessie Smith

tumbling from a transistor radio, it stays for good.

There is a pack of them, ravaged, made savage

by cage and raw meat, BB gun pellets shot

into their faces till the red ponds of their wounds

spill down. The cold ovals of metal chain interlock

jowls against the onyx fur of dogs stolen

from their owners. Howls scar the night. Some beasts

bite when fear tells them to. They destroy other dogs

and the angel of their shadows looks away.

In their old age, where do fighting dogs go? Where

rest their abused bodies made four-legged hauntings?

These precise lovers forced into vicious servitude,

their eyes rejecting moonlight, shake at first when held,

having not known such softness. Bathed and brushed

they whimper, are hushed. Softly, they begin to snore.