The Cavesleepers

I remain this tender, yearning 
to mend the flattened red wingage of every lantern 
fly that lingers on the stranger’s heels.

Lapping water from my cupped palms, 
silken jowls brush against my skin. The mouth opens 
and closes like a child’s hand, signing for want.

Your black-dog eyes have embraced being 
nocturnal. The bereft summer,
odors of wet earth and leather. I revere your phantom,

the lifelike yet lifeless flowers in the darkened yard— 
through photographs. We come to adore

the children we once were. Before you died and 
returned as a dog, how you sought to be Saturn 
and devour yourself, the child, and all your bones—

the arrow with no arrival. The ball slung 
again, and your impulse to follow. The canine points 
of stars that glow yellow of teeth of the extinct.

Do you recall the cavesleepers who slept for 
centuries? Their faithful dog’s paws unfurled at 
the mouth of their time-dilated dreams?

In divinity school, this is how they explain time travel 
and the companionship of dogs: In their centuries 
of rest, God did not abandon them or

rouse their dog. When they awoke, 
everyone had become

a believer.