--- G R E G O R Y   D J A N I K I A N

There's so much dog hair in the car
that my wife's black skirt has turned
a shade of gray and
who would be happy about that?

And not just in the car!
It's in the secret removes
of our bedroom, along the busy stairwells,
tons of it, I'm sure, under the refrigerator
where even light must sometimes pool.

Always this feeling
that wherever we are
something else has come through before us
and there's nothing
to be done.

Oh the cleaning bills are mounting,
the dryer is tumbling darkly!
And my wife is looking in the mirror
trying to brush away
all signs of it.

And where is the dog?
Out generously strewing the world
with itself
like a great thinker
who cannot contain all his ideas,

sniffing itself out happily --
here I am, here I have been! --
in the narrowest crevice.

Something like our coming upon a name
carved years ago in desk top or tree,
or finding a notation in a book
from a day when the sky
seemed as steep as the future.