Guard Dog
        for Sergio Ortiz

Mother me, rain, I come home
tired and thirsty
down to the snake-hiss of my bones.

No one to water my roots,
I rode them
to the river and told them drink.

My life sounded like a dog
trying to quench
the aridity of the west:

only marginally inhabitable,
he had perpetually
dusty eyes.

That dog has died
and I've buried him
too many times to tell.

And every time I climb in his grave
till he rises
to walk me home.

Even now, when I lay quiet as earth
under the clouds,
I can hear in my heart

the lap-lap, lap-lap
of that long, insatiable tongue.
He watches over me:

at the smell of whiskey on my breath,
he lifts his head to bark the liquor
back into the grain.

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Copyright © 2019 Ricky Ray All rights reserved
from Fealty
Diode Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission