163 Animal poems

I wept in a stable. I found money in the dirt. I reenacted a car accident in the tack room. I asked a horse van driver to let me off where the bridle path stopped. I looked at the jockey for what he was dreaming. I told him he was wrong about making things happen. He couldn’t make things happen. I couldn’t make things happen anymore. There is exactly not enough money in the world. Magical thinking got me where I am today. Animals are warriors of time. I stopped keeping things hidden. That wasn’t a horse we saw in the winner’s circle. I can’t stop horses as much as you can’t stop horses.

Here lies, whom hound did ne’er pursue, Nor swifter greyhound follow, Whose foot ne’er tainted morning dew, Nor ear heard huntsman’s hallo’, Old Tiney, surliest of his kind, Who, nursed with tender care, And to domesticate bounds confined, Was still a wild jack-hare. Though duly from my hand he took His pittance every night, He did it with a jealous look, And, when he could, would bite. His diet was of wheaten bread, And milk, and oats, and straw, Thistles, or lettuces instead, With sand to scour his maw. On twigs of hawthorn he regaled, On pippins’ russet peel; And, when his juicy salads failed, Sliced carrot pleased him well. A Turkey carpet was his lawn, Whereon he loved to bound, To skip and gambol like a fawn, And swing his rump around. His frisking was at evening hours, For then he lost his fear; But most before approaching showers, Or when a storm drew near. Eight years and five round-rolling moons He thus saw steal away, Dozing out all his idle noons, And every night at play. I kept him for his humor’s sake, For he would oft beguile My heart of thoughts that made it ache, And force me to a smile. But now, beneath this walnut-shade He finds his long, last home, And waits in snug concealment laid, Till gentler Puss shall come. He, still more agèd, feels the shocks From which no care can save, And, partner once of Tiney’s box, Must soon partake his grave.

On Turning up in Her Nest with the Plough, November, 1785 Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickerin brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee Wi’ murd’ring pattle! I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An’ fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave ’S a sma’ request: I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave, An’ never miss ’t! Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin, Baith snell an’ keen! Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary Winter comin fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro’ thy cell. That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble, An’ cranreuch cauld! But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear!

She couldn't help but sting my finger, clinging a moment before I flung her to the ground. Her gold is true, not the trick evening light plays on my roses. She curls into herself, stinger twitching, gilt wings folded. Her whole life just a few weeks, and my pain subsided in a moment. In the cold, she hardly had her wits to buzz. No warning from either of us: she sleeping in the richness of those petals, then the hand, my hand, cupping the bloom in devastating force, crushing the petals for the scent. And she mortally threatened, wholly unaware that I do this daily, alone with the gold last light, in what seems to me an act of love.

The cruelest thing I did to my dog wasn’t to ignore his barking for water when his tongue hung like a deflated balloon or to disregard his chronic need for a belly rub but to teach him to shake hands, a trick that took weeks of treats, his dark eyes like Greek olives, moist with desire. I made him sit, another injustice, and allowed him to want the nuggets enough to please me.Shake, I said.Shake? touching the back of his right leg until he lifted it, his saliva trickling from soft jowls, my hand wet with his hunger. Mistress of the biscuit, I ruffled his ears and said good dog until he got it. Before long, he raised his paw, shook me until he got the treat, the rub, the water in a chilled silver bowl, the wilderness in him gone, his eyes still lit with longing.

Imagine that — my last words might have been spoken to the dog, she who saved my life, it has been said, spoken with no thought of reply nor of understanding, a genial insult maybe, a philosophical conundrum posed aeons before any household pet ever turned an ear. In the ambulance I made no remark about trees nor how tired I was of them, and in the second ambulance our dog’s heart beat hard with terror.

For some semitropical reason when the rains fall relentlessly they fall into swimming pools, these otherwise bright and scary arachnids. They can swim a little, but not for long and they can’t climb the ladder out. They usually drown—but if you want their favor, if you believe there is justice, a reward for not loving the death of ugly and even dangerous (the eel, hog snake, rats) creatures, if you believe these things, then you would leave a lifebuoy or two in your swimming pool at night. And in the morning you would haul ashore the huddled, hairy survivors and escort them back to the bush, and know, be assured that at least these saved, as individuals, would not turn up again someday in your hat, drawer, or the tangled underworld of your socks, and that even— when your belief in justice merges with your belief in dreams— they may tell the others in a sign language four times as subtle and complicated as man’s that you are good, that you love them, that you would save them again.

The shag rug of a Great Plains buffalo, a flightless bird gone to stone: over its fellow keepsakes, into the archives of air, the whale hauled a harvest of dust. In the ripples of glass sealed over songbird skins, I wavered. What could be said for love? From the Full-Serv to the Self-Serv Island at the Gulf station next door, landlocked waves shivered in a row of corn. The great flukes lifted. A Milky Way scarred the underside more vast than the Midwestern night. Dark cargoes would give themselves up to these shallows that waited to take home the sailor, home to the sea of fossilized coral upon whose shoals just down the road the motels of Coralville lay sprawled. Here would lie a ring scratched by a scrivener with florid hand, In thy breast my heart does rest flung back to shore, here rest two coins face to face, joined by the salt that turned them faceless as they turned to each other.

Mad has decided to catch a vulture, the biggest bird she can find. She is so determined, and so inventive, that by stringing together a rickety trap of ropes and sticks, she creates a puzzling structure that just might be clever enough to trick a buzzard, once the trap’s baited with leftover pork from supper. Mad and I used to do everything together, but now I need a project all my own, so I roam the green fields, finding bones. The skull of a wild boar. The jawbone of a mule. Older cousins show me how to shake the mule’s quijada, to make the blunt teeth rattle. Guitars. Drums. Gourds. Sticks. A cow bell. A washboard. Pretty soon, we have a whole orchestra. On Cuban farms, even death can turn into music.

He was a surprise of white: his teeth like knives, his face a triangle of albino dislike. I had seen him before, on our back porch, where my father sometimes left watermelon rinds, and he dipped his tongue into them, his skin glowing beneath our lights, like some four-legged relative of the moon. I knew him as a citizen of the night: a fainting, ghostly presence with a tail so naked it was embarrassed to drag behind him. But that morning, terrified and violent, he was different: a hissing fury at the bottom of the garbage can, a vampire bathed in light.