The Circular Dog
My childhood collie chased his tail,
morphing to a donut, a self-eating snake,
a hurricane coiled to an eye, a black hole
glugging planets down its stygian throat,
The Milky Way where Earth ripens
nectarines and sun-dappled papayas
and my dog snapped at June bugs
one lazy summer when I stopped believing
in God, years later renaming God
as the center, Tillich’s Ground of Being,
a heaven where deer stamp pastures
tender as butter before I fell in love
with a classmate, her fingers
like Sunday light between window blinds
and someone told me to be a real man
I should punch my bully in the jaw,
so I did, and years later I’m still a boy
spinning in eddies, racing the clock hands
when I see my dog’s panting ghost; his breath
churning June bugs through hot summer grass.
* * * * *
The Fragrance of Thunder
My preschool air conditioner
smelled like dinosaurs
when I learned sauropods gobbled
brambles among piney odors.
French fries evoke high school Fridays,
salt stippled to the hope I’d find myself.
A moth tastes pheromones seven miles
from his maple-dark lover.
Bears sniff garbage for maggot steak risotto,
melted mackerel heads soaking nostrils
with carnal incense, the dumpster,
a holy chapel of stinks.
Thunderheads wad like Jove-chewed gum,
lightning bolts’ yellow adders
biting powerlines, showers
slobbering the pavement.
Let storms ferment new pongs
froggish from the earth. Nostalgia
wafts from empty futures,
gutters lathered in molasses-rich rain.