Dog Dreams

A straggly mutt stumbled through the alley
behind my one-room apartment last year.
I called out, Jake, old friend, come here,
as if I’d guessed his name from myriad possibilities.

Jake had been the name
of a dog my brother’s family had,
a hound who lived to be fourteen.
And celebrated a fat life.

Not like this mixed breed.
With fur missing and bare ribs.
He let me carry him up a few stairs,
then fell asleep in my dusty, lonely space.

His middle heaved
like some great bellows
fanning unfathomable dreams,
through each night. Deep delta waves.

His yelps and whines varied in tone.
He thrashed on a blanket by my bed,
fleeing some shadowy menace.
I don’t know if the stuff of his dreams

was any different than my own.
In the morning, I was often troubled
by desires sought, battles fought
in the yawning shadows.

When morning came, I groped
for remnants of my reverie,
the wool I gathered by day
and spun into a rough cloth that

unraveled and left me dangling.
When morning came, Jake discovered life,
refreshed, redeemed, renewed.
I watched him yawn and stretch,

a canine Lazarus. Alive in a fresh spirit.
As his sores healed, neighbors stopped
to pet Jake. They widened my almost-lost smile,
as I said goodbye to my own broken past.