I see Moses, the neighbor’s dog, playing with her. She is holding a number of things: a ball, a disc, a ring.

He looks up at her, his tail wagging, whimpering, saying, 'Quick! Give me this or that. I want to play now.'

She throws a ball and he races after it, not knowing he can't keep it for always.

He comes back loping, the ball clenched between his jaws. He runs around her in circles

Unwilling to relinquish the ball. Whimpering again as she pries it away from his mouth.

We are full of the same foolishness.

We whimper to God to throw us things. We know it is only play yet how we whimper again, when it's time to give the ball up!

Again she throws the ball out. And Moses dashes after it Barking in time to her clapping.

What am I but a dog playing imperfectly with the universe! And what is this poetry but my barking!

I am staying up all night with a body tired from labor and a heart alive with quick remembrance.

And you are not to blame, you are but water and laughter Both of which somehow slipped into me.

Now in the cold, the stone heart slowly splits. I am trying to hold it together. What is the cure for all this?

Not you. Yet it must be you. Quick hands are required to pull out the thorns: the accidental brush of hands, glances.

It would have been better to be stabbed clean with a knife, one deep stain, one color. Now I am a foolish polka dotted cloth.

I pity myself and my wolf of desire, which wants to howl at the moon all night.

Does the moon ever answer?

Inside of me lies A desert, a thirst An echo of vanished forests.

The secret remains Unseen, a layer of rock Covers the waters.

Their flowing sound I have only heard Lately within.

Now there is work To do, for hands To break through the bones

Of brittle desire, the cage Which imprisons a nightingale Holding the green oasis of song.