There it was, festering directly,
the corpse of the dog
at the center of the garden, of the world.
Its death waited for us
two full nights, shining with thirst
under the useless light of the moon.
I imagine the scene from the window,
the slow transformation of the body
into matter, bone, venomous
air. My eyes
on its slow escape from itself,
tiny star imploding,
black hole at the heart
of the turf, exactly six feet from the fig tree,
its gaunt limbs dancing blindly,
and four from the bird of paradise,
fastened to its stem and always in the throes
of death, impaired at flight, unable
to unfasten itself and turn
scavenger and sate its hunger.
There, in the center of the garden, the world started:
the dog showed me its sinking
into itself and the aloud act
of dying. Since then
my rigorous life orbits, my days, full-closing,
spiral, around the particular spot
of its body. And it swallows my past,
devouring works and days,
the garden and its house that no longer
exist, the weekend meals,
the toothless piano and Grandma
sitting at her dresser with her perfumes,
each vial, each smell darkened,
the plates suspended, turning
around the enormous gravity of that center,
where my whole dim life falls:
every hour and day that has left me,
every year and forever to come.
