elegy with attack dog
BY RACHEL MENNIES
And the loss takes your neck
in its teeth and splits the skin.
And the loss shakes
and shakes you, leaves
your spent body on the pavement.
And the loss returns quietly, as if
to forgive you: his fountain pens
in the chipped clay mug. His bourbon
softened with water.
And the loss finds you months later,
blissful until you realize, on vacation
in San Francisco; the loss climbs the palm-
lined hills with you as penance
for your happiness.
And the loss bares its teeth.
And the loss gnaws the window latch.
And the loss sees you sleep with an arm
outstretched, longing for him—sees your body
of bet-hedged love.
And the loss takes your neck
in its teeth and it splits the skin.
And the loss shakes
and shakes you, leaves you
where it drops you.
And today the sky decides
to cover you in snow instead of rain,
the new year begun
without your permission.
Those pens still splayed
in the chipped clay mug. The bourbon
closing your eyes.
And the loss pulls you close—
for there’s nothing else left for the loss
to do. It nuzzles you, retracts
its snarl; it sleeps like the dead
at the foot of your bed.
And you lie awake
and stare at the loss, rubbing
the soft spot at your throat
that misses the shape
of its mouth.
first draft of the mother
BY RACHEL MENNIES
The creature I made has feet
too soft for the ground.
The creature has my feet,
perhaps, my feet once too soft
for the ground, a puzzle
my mother solved, or grew stronger
on my weakness, lifting me up,
up. I feed this creature
and she grows—
you and I had known the secret
of this simple impossible work
all along—we lift her
and lift her and she sings
somewhere above us, gravity
and what saves us
from gravity—she survives
and we feed on her survival,
this sour-mouth and this
hot-skin, this
warden of our light.
