Scout
The dog must have run for miles.
Messenger from nowhere.
Fireworks lit up the harbor.
White dog in dark outside my house.
So long not wanting my life. Artillery sounds
As the sky lit. Twin to my own white “rescue”
Back when I had a family. Same wolf-face—
At my door, soaking wet and panting terror.
Scout said his tag. Owner’s name, numbers.
I called, but all that night no one came for Scout.
He paced on my floor, stood sentry by the pool
Staring back at me. Fireworks lit up the harbor.
At last he slept by my bed, white dog. Dark.
Morning: the phone lit up: last night
his owner had drowned alone in her pool.
Before those eyes, his owner, sky alight.
The rumors later that she hadn’t wanted to live.
He’d come, emissary, to me. That was illusion.
He had tried to save her. That was hope.
Such evidence that she loved him.
Tags, numbers—strategy: survive and save.
But the merciless dictates of hope.
The merciless dictates of the message.
She, wading into tinted water. His shadow.
The harbor lighting up. Then, in deeper darkness—
White dog, running for miles.
