Poem #96

Sherman barking
barking
barking.
Sometimes it's all I hear.

Great loud booming
booming
booming,
deep inside my ear.
4/21/02010

Here's a poem about our mongrel, Sherman. When we first got him, he was as quiet as a mouse. I kept asking Beth what was wrong with him, convinced that his silence [and extreme passivity] were a symptom of something, a sure sign that death was near. Well, clearly I broke him. Now he is not passive at all, and he has a very loud and insistent bark. A decade on, he's not showing any signs that he's at all ready for death.

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