From the Ghost, the Animal

          Of all the figures in delirium tremens,
          The most common is the gray dog.


Not the rat then.  We assumed it was the rat,
scratching up not hell exactly, but
the path there.  We assumed
it was the spider, leech,
each in from its Gothic other, those zones
with us and not, like sleep.

But the dog, gray dog--
flock-guider, companion for the slow
rowing--pads in from the hallway,
your life in tow.
                         And please,
there is something wrong with the light,
this muzzle, honed to a trowel,
this jab, retreat, this
dirge through a smile of froth.  Up
from your ribs, lungs, up
from the hollows you walk through--

wind, black shoe, the sun at your eyelids,
the simple bread--up from the ghost
and the animal, you answer--bellow,

hideous whine--while he slumps to the floorboards,
clear-eyed, pands Run
with me darling, the meadows, the lost day.

                                                              --Linda Bierds