by David O'Meara

Here's the dog I remember most:
Its hind legs were gone, both

of them; and in their place, artless
clumps of gnarled-up bone, and space.

Not that it seemed to notice much -
we watched it literally haul its ass

across the dusty compound, front paws and
pistoned legs below the deadly concentration

- almost placed expression - of that
whiskered untragic snout.

Nothing was strange. Green hills sat
where they had the night before

and the river we were bound for
sashayed in wide crescents south-east

toward Chiang Rai. A monk
was having his head shaved in the sun.

The birth, bus wheel, or unmarked
land-mine that tore the flesh away, crude

as fate, seemed
mistaken, wasted, or dumb

to grace its meaning there, in the alien
unenterable mind of that mutt.

David O'Meara currently lives in Ottawa, Ontario where he is working on a new collection of poems. His first book is called "Storm still." 

• fiction
• poetry
• nonfiction