Our old dog, long into his dotage, yawns-
a half blind version of a breed that bred
among the Celts and kept their women clean
by barking off the covetous among their kind
when the husbands were off a-pillageing,
making poems and chaos in the next county.
Later, when the Celts themselves had settled in
and took to one god and wearing collars
their dogs grew tame and even tempered tending
sheep and living to a good age; slept for hours
the way our own dog, sprawled on the linoleum,
listens to the breeze sing underneath
the door we never weatherstripped and hears
in some corpuscle of his ancient blood
the rage of wind matting his wet fur back
sending a lather up from the seawrack
to float among the sea birds, hears them screech
above a band half blind with drink-wild men
who, having brought their plunder to the land’s end,
ready their flimsy boats along the beach.
It was, of course, the blood we paid for. Spent
good money in bad times for a pedigree-
a hundred dollars, fifteen years ago
for what my wife claimed was a dog with character.
Nor will she let me, much as I’m inclined
(watching the pearlescent cataract
bloom in his good eye) when he’s wholly blind,
coax him towards a stand of trees out back
and because we’ve both grown over-civilized,
do him in with utmost dignity.
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