Black Dog Fishing
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.
He wishes he had the wherewithal to breathe water.
To sink
willingly,
without drowning,
and be surrounded but still himself,
a nested bubble
in a force that would hold him.
It weaves like a dragon between the green -
the fish in a puddle moves with more self-assurance
than the rangy lope
of a Black Dog,
a purity of purpose that’s as effortless
and dazzling
as the metal shimmer of fins.
To move through something,
and let it lift you.
The Black Dog holds his snout under
to watch the fish menace snails that bead
as unhurried perspiration on the pebbles,
and the fish swells with himself,
made large as a splash of blood
blossoming in the water.
He’s as big as he believes himself to be.
Sure of his magnificence
the fish rises up,
sips the air,
and the Black Dog snorts bubbles
and lifts his dripping chops
and reels at the inequity - he can breathe my world while his, an abyss,
I can’t even howl into.