Pavlov’s Dog

Last night, late, a light rain
beading the windshield,
I held you and we listened
to the static and old songs on the radio.
Filled with the past, the failure
of love to last, beyond our breath
on the glass I saw coming
down the wet street a great dog,
his chestnut coat long and curling,
soaked as though he’d walked all night
to stand there before us.
I held you close and watched him
shut his yellow eyes
and shake slowly his massive head,
water slinging from his muzzle
in threads of light.
I watched him drive the muscles
of his neck and shoulders,
his back, flanks, hips a blur
of motion and water flowering.

And so I believed
love and sorrow must be foreign
to each other, the heart so large
they never meet, never speak.
Why is it not so? Why the old song,
desire and heartbreak we can sing
word for word after all these years?
Why as I held you did that dog
appear and appear to shake himself clean,
only to roll his eyes open
and stand unmoving, staring
our way through the rain?
Cold and steady and long
into the night it fell,
into his thick coat,
into my heart where you walk,
filled with love and unafraid.
I am afraid. Of Pavlov,
of his bell and saliva at work
in my life. Tell me how I am
to join you, to shake free for good
of that cold man’s rain,
his dog standing wet, obedient
and brutal as a bell ringing,
always ringing, for sorrow.