Blackbird Archive← v13n1, Spring 2014Poetry · Volume 13, Number 1
Of Opposites
We call the dog a pig, but
in the most affectionate manner—
it’s the grunts he grunts
when lifted one place to another
or tempted with a bite of kibble,
little red drum thumping
in his ribcage’s fluttering dance hall.
On one side of this, the blood-tempo beating,
~
on the other: dark overspray of matter
as the gunman turns the barrel on himself.
(Stand up, frightened boy-ghost,
test the balance of your boat.
Is he drifting, rowing, a bit of both?)
A door inside a door inside a room:
sand-fine ice hurries into banks, drifts—
early March, of course. The bottom-dregs.
