Anubis

There suddenly

where the streetlight

weaves like

smoke among the

outer edges

of the leafy

branches that arch

over the road

around a blackness

that the road runs into

and becomes.

Black mouth of nothing

down which a barking

dog breaks loose

on the scent of something

and escapes his name,

and the name too—

called and called—

escapes running

out of itself

into a sound

into a tongueless

and un-echoing

jackal-headed

greedy O

you bastard of a

blacker silence.

Copyright © 2007 Alan Shapiro All rights reserved
from Iron Horse Literary Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission