by Kathryn Kirkpatrick
The jagged trail of pee
starts on the porch mat’s
rough weave, crosses
the foyer into the front room
and ends on the rug
brought from Turkey.
What can she mean?
My dear oldest dog, trained
these twelve years to outside
and inside, has always been
clear about rules, no shredded
books in her history, not
a single mangled shoe.
But here she’s let flow
behind my waking
back, speaking her language
of potent scent and boundary
on this day of all days
when I’m to be measured
and charted, the distance
from heart to lung
calibrated, from lymph node
to rib, the threshold of my
body crossed and recrossed
so radiation can scour my cells.
Ceilidh knows the boundaries
have changed. She sleeps by
my bed and we breathe
through each other’s dreams.
Perhaps because I’ve made
no offering to the gods
done no threshold ritual
of my own, she is marking
the moment. Mop all you want
she seems to say as I run
for the bucket and sponge.
Now this world is in you
and you are in this world.
