The Black Dog Learns to Read
Freeform poetry from the introspective collection, Black Dog, that runs with a folkloric figure that is often associated with misfortune and used as a metaphor for depression. Black Dog looks at this figure and gives him a voice, letting him bark back at a society that's already made up its mind about him.
Wet at the eyes, he’s left squinting
in the light of something that never touched him,
extinct as stars,
the prolonged exposure of headlights
blurring as they unravel
going the other way.
If only it were as distant.
That is the hurt of it - the shortness of reach.
As close as water, sunset painted,
the rose and turquoise gleam,
and he longs to be an island in its grip.
But he’s a Black Dog on the shoreline
thrown away from its glare,
the long smudge of scorched ground, stretching out
out
away
from something he has only known
in so many others’ words,
the loss of something
somebody else had.