Trenyce Tong
1
My dog dies on a Sunday, July's rain
a muzzle around my heart. At night I dream
about the trails behind my house where we
weaved in and out of trees, bellies
hanging & knees scabbed. This poem is
about life. I know. My spittooned dog. God.
In the beginning, all the world was America*
so I lie still on her tracks, wait for the talons
to sink into steel. My bones sold for a carton
of milk. My face washed ashore on this desert
of the most golden grain. Good citizen
with the right features, only the wrong
eyes. Wrong name. But I want to say he loved
me anyway. My dog, I mean, the one
who drowned in sand. My mother tells me
to follow my dog's tango, tangle with our flag
until all the poppies drop. By morning, stoplights
stuck on red & the roads splitting themselves
open for the next super bloom. Look
how quickly I learn. I promise I can be better
than this city’s exhaust, better than the letters
pillaging the fields, all the right ones for god
& the wrong ones for myself: dog, immigrant,
god, god I love how good you are to me.
*From Two Treatises of Government by John Locke