Midnight Mass
He maketh me lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside still waters.
—Psalm 23
Misplaced mutt. No collar. Napping. Fur like
mother’s mitten
in my hand, tugging her
only child home. Church bells in the moon-
light, false witness,
snow. I remember asking
Were there any dogs in Bethlehem? The Lord
then my shepherd,
confused at five. That life
lying among statues so quiet, so calm in its
Christmas coat.
Breath like a hymn. Wet nose,
nostrils flaring slow. How could anything
so fragile live
on its own, no nest, no soul
inside it? Like a babe in the woods I
wanted to bring it
back with us. Yet we kept
walking. Past the chapel, past the churchyard
the lumberyard,
the train tracks and their
bed of stone. I can’t remember what she said.
Fear of fleas, perhaps
it may be feral; whatever it was
made sense I’m sure. We didn’t need another
dog, didn’t have
room in our little house for
another mouth to feed. But were they there
in Bethlehem, I
insisted, Would Mary tell Jesus
No? I was a brat. A spoiled prince, enthroned.
But when I close
my eyes I see that mutt in
the manger. Starving, lonely and cold. Wisemen
around him stuffed
with straw, unmoving. My
mother making sense. One footprint falling
into the next.
To Montevideo
for Luanne
We were double-sided tape, she writes,
all adhesive. We were the hollow space
a shell curls around; the wrapping
that is the gift. Like children boiling tea
from pine needles, it wasn’t a thirst
that moved us. You chased a soccer ball
around the world while I chased the world.
We were like your speech—blunt and broken,
only as beautiful as it was meaningless.
No way to say it more simply than that.
As her new husband stirs upstairs
she folds the letter. Tongues the glue.
