Bitch as Sheepdog
Before shearing the sheepfold sleeps and the singular dodgy eyes dart like wolfish hands under a blanket. This marriage bed. Once I lost another dog. Once I lost them both. At night I think of anyone but him. I begin to notice how he hates my questions. I move to feed the animals. The little one licks the bowl. The bigger one squeezes me around the ribs until I cannot breathe. And the wolf— I catch him staring when I am quiet— as if he’d unstitch my skin, too, and open my head, hardwire my brain into submission. Even after he kills me, he puts his ear to the coarse pastoral of my shame. Trembly voice. The pelts at his feet. By his works he should be known.