22.

The dog beyond the gate barked, as if

Human love were strange, like the silent whistle

Dogs only can hear. You know how desperate

I am when cats stray into a sonnet.

The human zoo is nothing like the sun

And the ethnology of lust gets lost

In cannibals and Amazons, the threats

To flesh, the anguish. Love becomes

A territory of unrequited dreams.

Your eyes gaze out from the porch

And the sun is growing dim by the rail.

It is late, and in this town they are born

And die. It’s like that. The wind blows on your coffee,

Spills it, and no one is there to lap it.