The Shaman’s Dog
The shaman’s dog comes
and rests her head on my knee
as if she sees my condition:
puddled here in weird shapes and colors
played out like an old guitar.
In times before, I was tight knit, wound up
I knew things or things knew me
I went places and acted on the world
I was “I.”
Now the sight of a sunset undoes me
for days.
The shaman’s dog shakes her coat
and fur goes flying.
The sunlight catches it where it drifts
forming a halo around her body
her eyes pools of golden light;
how have I never
noticed the simple beauty of the world?
The shaman’s dog laughs
her mouth open wide
in rows of perfect gleaming knives.
“I know you,” she says
her soft growl vibrating at my throat
in a way that sends pulses of terror and joy
drumming through my arteries.
Now we are spinning in a magenta rain
and she looks like a Van Gogh painting
of a dog with a blue coat and lots of teeth.
“Who am I?”
My question melts into a bed of flowers.
She places a heavy paw on my chest
tips her head to the side and stares at me.
“You are the shaman,” she says
and bites.
