ISSUE: Winter 2019
1.
I still don’t know if Jesus was the dog or Jesus
See Jesus doesn’t make himself
Apparent like I might have thought he would’ve if
I’d ever thought about it but I guess I just thought he was
Most of the time smiling and judging on
His throne and maybe sometimes he’d hop up and jog
A few circles around God the father like a dog
Chasing its tail then sit back down
Grinning like it’s a joke between them
Or something maybe I just thought
He sometimes probably he’s got
To be a man still even
In Heaven even though the other men
In Heaven are dead so I get to Heaven and
2.
First thing I see first living thing I see
After the gate just past the field just past
The gate it’s two things it’s
A tall white man in a white robe who looks like Je-
sus in a painting in a Bible made for children
Smiling and waving next to him facing him there’s
This dog looks like it was about to be a Ger-
man shepherd but some bloodhound fell in
Its path looks like a floppy wolf
And it doesn’t care for the man it’s got its back up
Its head down and it’s growling like it’s
Fixing to kill him but like it’s scared the man will
Kill it if it doesn’t kill him first the way
A growling dog can seem to want to cry
3.
And the man doesn’t seem to notice it
I notice I hear the dog growling from
The middle of the field but the man doesn’t seem
To notice anything in Heaven but
Me and I stop a good ten feet away
From him from the man and the dog from both
But mostly from the dog whose teeth
Are white as clouds whose fur is gray
As rain in clouds who looks like a day thinking
I stop and the man speaks to me he says I see
In your eyes a dog still stands next to me
I see the dog still bares its teeth the dog is speaking
Through you but also you sustain the dog it doesn’t know
You have this pow-
4.
er you with your silence and fear
You feed the dog step forward friend and tell me who I am
Come speak my name
My name will drive the dog away almost before
He says the eh in away the
Dog bites his thigh at first I think the dog has
Bitten clean through the meat but then I see its tongue is
Bleeding I see the man is dissipating
Like fog and the dog turns and runs
Deep into Heaven and disappears so fast I couldn’t have
Even if I had wanted to chased it through Heav-
en when I turn to the man again the man is gone
I run to where he stood
From the empty air blood drips into the pool of blood
