Way Down

First published on the Voicemail Poems

Photo credit: adobe stock photos

There is a dog somewhere

In my building

That cries all day for love

In our shared shelter

Crying all day for love

I searched the staircases

And the old boxes people leave

By the dumpster when it’s too full

By the too-full dumpster

And I brought myself

To peer into the pool

And then I saw the dog

What a dog, what a dog

Weaving back and forth

On the skin of the water

Crying for love like water

When it blathers under a bridge

Crying with my cry

Shaking like I shake

Looking at my eyes with my eyes

On the skin of the crying water

And I felt that when I was looking

Through the heaps of trash

For what was crying all day for love

I felt that I was looking through myself

But what I did was jump

Into the water expecting to sink

Only to smash the dog’s face

Into ripples that have never stopped.