Waiting for Judgment

Waiting for Judgment

As if the sliding glass door
were a gangplank
and the dark yard our ocean,
I send the dog out
into night's waters.
"Swim mutt," I tell her
and wait at the railing,
I listen for sounds of her
paddling around the rose bush.
Tonight the sea swells
like springtime, waves
of dark earth and shadow.
I grab a lantern frantic
that she has drowned.
"To me," I summon her,
Leviathan rising from buttercups,
I envy her bright eyes,
the scent of wild on her neck.
And all the stars in the sky dissolved
and the heavens rolled up—
"To me," I whisper
and we sit like that
waiting—