Old Dog Secrets

by Isa Mari De Leon

I don’t walk how I used to and I piss on almost everything:

doorframe corners, the humming refrigerator, table legs,

human legs, couch cushions, flowerpots, unshelved shoes—

anywhere but the backyard. It’s sacred out here.

I can ignore the puppyish tremor of my limbs

and see out my good eye the world’s slow-turning marvels.

The haunt of grass. The baby bees, clutching their pollen.

Oh, the troves of dirt I once unearthed, the holy hills.

I have tried to tell my owner, silly girl and awful listener,

of all the names and places of things. That I have deciphered

the secrets of our shared niche, and the codes cannot be viewed

from beneath the blankets of the comforter I am shoved off,

nor are they hidden alongside a ham treat, enclosed in her fist.

I’ve yowled at her, in my most potent and insistent snaps:

Have you seen the dreary socks in the laundry basket?

The lines between the kitchen tiles? The color of my fur?

The dogged flickering of lightbulbs, dreaming in the ceilings?