Tip

my first dog Tip died in the dark

lying alone on the floor at the barn

his body gone hard

in the cold of the night

like a branch that broke off at the graft

and then broke again 

as it fell to the earth

where he lay in the curl of himself

among chop sacks and 

snap-string hay

in the fragrance of silage 

of rolled oats and molasses

and wheat straw

shook of its dust

and whitewash rubbed

from the rock as with each white stone

you might think of the full moon 

coated in mist

and the cruel gods 

brought the news to the house

in the snow

blown in at the door

and oh my slow-to-wake heart

you’d think it might 

be inured to death

and dying 

accustomed as I was by then 

to failing runts and scouring calves

and distempered cats

their eyes sewn shut

by the green weep of crusted suppuration 

but in truth 

I suffered every loss

even that of the old ewe

her last fleece

like the torn-away sleeve

of a mendicant’s coat

even she

who snuffled to breathe

the yellow snooze 

worming her nostril 

and not-at-all beautiful 

come and go 

with an effluent 

flux of her lungs

her lamb twins leaping

as I might leap

in the milk-breath of morning

to think of my mother

as young

and my first dog Tip

a fat pup calling joy out of sorrow

and sorrow from joy

2021 Angela Consolo Mankiewicz Poetry Award of Los Angeles