Searching for my dog’s form
I trace over a photograph and cut the background away.
It is not him but the longing for him.

Searching for the longing for my dog,
I draw a nose on the paper dog shape.
I connect a constellation of dog limbs, sinews, muscles, fur.
I don’t know how to cut around the fur that juts away from his back
like a thousand eyelashes.

I draw his ribcage, a spirograph of wind.
I draw him alive. My hand shakes.
It shakes around his open eyes.
I shade them in so dark the pencil breaks.

I bend the tracing-paper legs like deer limbs folded in.
I fold his ears, pleated pieces, a broken accordion dog.
I fold his tail, collapsing it into thirds behind his torso,
curled and bent around the sturdy halo of his ribs.
My dog in my pocket, I talk, Good dog, good dog, let’s go for a walk.