Today's poem is by Winniebell Xinyu Zong

What I Wish My Dog Understood
       

Montana, it's cold outside, & you have peed
on this tree already, but all right, we'll stay awhile.

My people call the big bowls the ocean, so
I painted yours blue. With me, you will eat well.

In Japan, they braise chicken in beaten egg broth—
oyakodon. Replace the chicken with beef or pork,

the dish becomes tanindon. Oyako: parent & child.
Tanin: strangers. In the '80s, rabies forced my village

to choke clean your barks overnight.
Ma & neighbors swapped your carcasses to avoid

stir-frying faces of their own. In North Korea,
Nureongi is a popular breed for spicy stew. Eating beef

was a sin enough to be executed. Cows feasted
on government beans when people perished

in famine by millions. But you, you can never
plow the fields with the strength of five men.

You are approved sweet meat, the heat to cure
heat. Back home, you go well with chives & chili.

A hit-&-run ignites a race among villagers—who
will reap the freshest kill today? No lamppost

flyers will cry for your return but this one:
DOG MEAT WANTED. REGULAR SUPPLIER PREFERRED.

Montana, forgive me, I cannot save your kin, but
let's walk the long walk, & I'll keep your water bowl clean.

*
When I was young, Ba drove me to a nameless hill.
On the hill, bald, scrawny trees. On each tree, a tied lamb.

Dandelion furs. Ravine eyes. Ninety days
young. Just choose one, Ba said, cross

about my petting. On the hill, they burned bones
for flavor, not cremation. I asked Ba, Why is it not slit in the throat

but in an artery far away from the heart? He said,
Breathing 'til the last beat makes the meat juicier.

By which he meant, we itched for it to cry
as it lay waning. When Ba later pinched a piece of muscle

between a pair of chopsticks, it was so warm, so pulpy,
I wanted to swallow lips & cheeks of my own. Sweet Montana,

we once thought your world small, a color range of brown
& gray, where blood shared the shade with our rugs & shits

you happily rolled on. But you saw more than we knew.
You smelled our stench streets, oceans, continents away.

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Copyright © 2023 Winniebell Xinyu Zong All rights reserved
from The Southern Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission