An Alternate Version of Goya’s The Dog

We look at what could be your dog drowning.
We came through room after room where there was only the divine
As best guessed. Jesus was never the same

From one canvas to the next. You believe one day our dog will die,
But Goya’s dog is a long time in the luxury of undying––
The perpetual mid-paddle, the forever abiding the no motion

Tethered to our vexed moment. We tell ourselves we know pretty,
But mostly we’re right where someone said stay. With Goya’s dog
All the handsome colors are conjured without bone or fur

Or pain. This is the liminal tour of a limited world you choose
To place your pathos. We look at the painting and see
Your dog barking louder than necessary, or his begging devotion,

Though there is none of those things. We see a lunatic tide
Though there is none. We look, and we look again,
Just as some look at those other paintings and see––and see

An idea of heaven even though they look to me like drowning.
Here the dog is drowning in the dark edges of the day.
Here he is drowning in love. And here, to be fair, he is drowning

In someone’s mongrel gaze. Here drowning, come darkness––
Lay down water, dear clever Spaniard––sit and stay
Swimmers floating in the joy of anything even if it is sorrow.