BOOK OF DOG
ALSO BY CLEOPATRA MATHIS
Aerial View of Louisiana (1980)
The Bottom Land (1983)
Guardian (1995)
What to Tip the Boatman? (2001)
White Sea (2005)
BOOK OF DOG
Poems
Cleopatra Mathis
© 2012 by Cleopatra Mathis
FIRST EDITION
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher. Please direct inquiries to:
Managing Editor
Sarabande Books, Inc.
2234 Dundee Road, Suite 200
Louisville, KY 40205
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mathis, Cleopatra, 1947–
Book of dog : poems / Cleopatra Mathis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-936747-80-1
I. Title.
PS3563.A8363B66 2013
811'.54—dc23
2012029732
Cover painting by Louise Hamlin.
Cover and text design by Kirkby Gann Tittle.
Manufactured in Canada.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.
 |
The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
For Ellen Bryant Voigt
“We live in a cage of light an amazing cage
Animals animals without end”
—Ikkyū
Contents
When She Spoke, He Closed His Eyes
Interstice
1. Between Grief and Sorrow
2. The Coldest Weather
3. In the Woods
I Will Be Good
New Snow
Essential Tremor
In Lent
Noise
Over
II. BOOK OF DOG
III. ESSENTIAL TREMOR
Magnificence
Dune Shack
Alone
True Bug
Salt Water Ducks
Your Body Betrays You
Holding On
Bat
Release
Magnet
Western Conifer Seed Bug
The Wish
Day Old Mice
Transformation
New Dog
At Land’s End
Revenant
Survival: a Guide
Acknowledgments
Notes
The Author
When she came back from walking the dogs
he would not look at her. Fast in his place on the couch
he said whatever he said
without urgency: she was like any other distraction.
The set of his jaw, his lips,
