For Marie
Dogs. Yes, dogs she says, are like angels.
No, I say, they are like dogs. It’s 103 degrees.
August, church bells banging, cars, voices
of children and parents. Dogs,
are better than people, she says.
They embody virtue, exemplify
the steadfastness and magnanimity
that redeem the nightbound world.
I’m not sure, I say. I think they’re more like dogs.
Meanwhile, we’re watching her dog noisily and
intently chew a rawhide. I’m thinking
that I don’t like having a body. Dogs, she says,
have been coevolving with humans for 50,000 years.
That’s a long time, I say, imagining
a northern landscape, campfires, ancient
caribou herds, dogs trailing skeptically behind,
eyeing their first humans. Do you think, I say,
we are getting any better? Me, you,
people? Do you think dogs
are making us better humans?
I don’t really look at it that way, she says.
What way, I ask? The getting better way,
she says, that things are getting anywhere.
Oh, I say, seeing a planet in flames, humans
clinging to dogs, careening through space,
burning towards the next world.