When this whole world was sweat smelly and poor and when we walked away the end,

when tears once washing my unsmoothed face welled but would not fall, when why

what where when who were weary of being, I packed up my poorest dream and cried a

silent non-being tear. A dog barked back up the same street we’d walked down, a dog

cried in whimpering weeping, the dog cried.

Walking down I hear the worm-worried cur cruddling a hole, and you take a hand in

your hand to walk a way together. I see a sound of toiled soiled night dark and

touching a silent sleep we slept, cruel game we played, for desire I sighed urgent

wantings to be one, and we came together together a wishing one of us in moistured

love I think you called it, in one our arm and body twisting mingled.

A saddened sick we slept together, hungerous crave to touch once more, once again,

once as before, mouth and being one, we slept. The night speeds away, too soon the

morning mourning call to come, and away we flee. And as we wake walk we seem to

drift, adrift daft dumbing we float away, and sleep we know a long to be we are apart

and –

Alone, this four-legged lame feet and paw poor pooch he me cruddles in a sense. And

such innocence pure and poor he brends his white being where he dies. This dog

sickens his self-being as he fades, this dog grieves a ghost before he goes, the grave

gives the good of the wasted, he sees me he sees, and we know what waste, and I

move, lay, and died beside.

Bruce J. Berger received his MFA from American University in Washington, DC. His poetry appears in a variety of literary journals, including the Potomac Review, Hevria, and Innisfree Poetry Journal, among others.

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