Merridawn Duckler
Dream of the Dog
A golden retriever with a map of home shaved on his back,
wriggled into my arms. I explained
to the dream-lawyer I had dream-hired
this dream-dog was now mine own blind guide.
His owner has no way to find him, I lied,
my hand on the back map, hiding the truth. Meanwhile,
morning mounted the stair with all the indifference of a departing
train. Just then the dog’s owner ran in, gathered up his dog-bouquet,
furious as I’d be, as I was, since I was playing every character:
dog-stealer, dog-owner, dog-lawyer, even the dog itself, tail agog.
Used to be my dream animals bit my hand so hard I’d cry.
but here, for once, it panted, stolen, sure, but a pure circle of good.
Merridawn Duckler is a poet, playwright from Portland, Oregon, and the author of INTERSTATE forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. Recent work published or forthcoming in Ninth Letter, Juked, Jet Fuel Review, Disquieting Muses Quarterly, and the anthologies Climate of Opinion: Sigmund Freud in Poetry and Weaving the Terrain: 100 Word Southwestern Poems from Dos Gatos Press. Her fellowships/awards include Writers@Work, NEA, Yaddo, Squaw Valley, SLS in St. Petersburg, Russia, Southampton Poetry Conference, and Wigleaf Top 50. She’s an editor at Narrative and at the international philosophy journal Evental Aesthetics.
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