The India Effect

She’s awfully hyper for a spayed dog, or is it just a myth
that they simmer down after the scissors cut the tail
off the stitches that hold together abdomen skin?
She’s the paladin of playful, hogging the rawhide
with labial coquetry from our always-terrified fox terrier
whose bark pierces ears (if it appears in the first place).
But he’s fearless in her company, comforted by his Alpha status.
Maybe the Shepherd half makes her violent because
she batters my haffet with her pregnant paw, trying to cup
my face like I’m her husband but clawing me in the process.

Yes, I let her lick me on the mouth. I don’t reject her copious
affection because she was once neglected, underfed,
and now gratitude gushes from her hugs and I can’t help
but forget for a moment that I’m irritated with the world
like it’s been posing the same question over and yes over again;
forget that my partner came home pissy and complaining of a headache
while dishes sit waiting to be washed, soaking for the third damn time;
forget they’re trying to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge;
forget that my dad’s heart has been for fourteen years chilled and rotting;
forget people flick cigarettes onto the grass, which didn’t do anything to them—

and I remember how many chances I’ve had to join Mexican Jumping Beans
in their typically vexing tarantella; to watch a movie without ruining it
by clouding my attention with things I should be doing;
to tell my mother I am grateful for her overseeing
even if I’m embarrassed by how often she still calls me;
to gather all the voices of despair in my head and scatter them
out into the universe; to disperse them into the company of orbits;
to embrace my corpus as the result of billions of moments
of silent growth, of forgotten epiphanies and vermillion planets—
how many chances I’ve had to do, to feel, but didn’t.