I will give you my finest hour
A bubble of spit sits perched
on his puffed-out lower lip,
and his eyelids softly flutter.
The young Dalmatian sleeps, dressed only in a pair
of ancient boxers that once belonged to me.
Just a bit - just a hint - of his sheathe pokes out
from the boxers' front-side slit.
He sleeps on his back, left arm
folded across his chest, and
right arm loose by his side.
His long and graceful legs stretch out,
his toes are pointed at the ceiling.
All of twenty-two, by the Goddess,
and nestled deep in confident slumber.
If he's dreaming, he must be having
peaceful and easy dreams, because
he doesn't twitch, he doesn't moan, he doesn't
curl up on his side and clutch the pillow
like a life preserver.
I watch him sleep his confident sleep, I watch
his stomach fall and rise,
as he breathes in, breathes out,
and I think about how the ocean's tide
washes over and shivers the sand.
I breathe in the urge to stroke
his black and white fur, so short, so soft;
I breathe out a selflessness
that says, let him rest.
Twenty and two!
More than half my age.
No wonder he sleeps so well, he's young,
the world hasn't done anything bad
to him - not yet, anyway.
He doesn't have the ghosts, the demons,
the haunted memories which some of us
carry around like heavy souvenirs.
On this warm summer night,
I hold and examine again my amazement --
here he is, in my bed,
his warm, furry form next to mine.
What twist of fate, what chance
meeting, what unique and
unlikely set
of circumstances
led him here,
to the home of an older Great Dane
with bad hips and a preference
for quiet nights in rather than loud nights out?
And through the open window drifts
the soothing city sounds --
the car alarms, the whir of buses,
the roar of garbage trucks, the hum
of giant neon signs, the ebb and flow
of the hushed conversation of pedestrians
(who are on their way to somewhere,
at two o'clock in the morning).
And through the open window drifts
the warm summer air --
air so blessedly warm and comforting,
there's not a single trace
of the chill of autumn.