The Black Dog Swallows the Light
Freeform poetry from the introspective collection, Black Dog, that runs with a folkloric figure that is often associated with misfortune and used as a metaphor for depression. Black Dog looks at this figure and gives him a voice, letting him bark back at a society that's already made up its mind about him.
You’d think he’d thrash around more,
red-mawed,
wild-eyed
and thirsting.
Instead his body makes a meek spiral,
and he lets it stay a malign sizzling in his chest,
for fear
that if the gate of teeth should breach
it would only feed
on air
on flesh
and come more alive,
that the furnace might sire things more sharp
than jaws,
hungrier than the charred hollow of his guts.
If he screams he knows
he would scream fire
so he gulps oceans just to feel them seethe
and scalds himself
sooner salt-sick than ignite into calamity.
He doesn’t know anymore
what will succumb first.
Will he crumble, ashen faced
and let the wind carry him,
or will it shine incandescent between his scorched ribs,
and flow from his mouth to meet the sea
and leave himself standing in his upheaval
an uninhabited new land
still hot to the touch?