Hound.

HOUND
For Adam Tovel

   You circle your own house with your dog,
   who knows when to sit before you know
   to ask him. You are mutually impressed,
   as if both of you learned the same word
   in different languages. You trust his language
   more. He wakes when you wake dreaming
   about the same high grasses. Another word.
   No one knocks now when the snow
   makes of you a warmer planet. So much
   for the terror of your first child's first seizure.
   So much for the collision of cars, the spray
   of glass, a brown belt left on the seat of a blue van
   at the body shop. Did those people make it?
   No. This kind of terror takes years to be made
   like the fog that has settled on all the kitchen
   tumblers. First the water, then its reason.
   It takes years to arrive and when it does,
   even your dog, who is otherwise oblivious
   to history and always kind, will whimper
   for you in your own terrible language.