The Loneliness of Dogs

About spelling the human masters
were never wrong, making me wonder
at what age did their cleverness reveal
that god spelled backwards was dog?
Later in their lives, a larger orthography
came to define them in their own letters:
somewhere between animal and angel.

But for me it's always been a dog's life.
And if a deity ever entered my shaggy
existence, it was only the unlettered moon
to whom I howled all those nights
when a restless emptiness slipped
over my fur like a black glove,

and I became the hand that fed me.

Copyright © 2009 Tim Mayo All rights reserved
from The Kingdom of Possibilities
Mayapple Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission