"by chance I could find you on Delta flight 172"

Asiya Wadud

   

          today you tended your dog

          his hind leg wrapped in a clean black cast

 

          standard poodle, dusting of sunset

          my little subsister

 

the animal strutted proudly

all through his body

          his plastered leg barely dragged

 

 

 

 

this was all while many other

animals

lolled

while many others listed

every burden a compensation

 

 

 

I love where you place the animal's

needs

his awareness of where you

place his needs

 

 

 

          need is a reflexive gesture

          between

the animal      and the animal

 

need is a disciplined

pool

 

 

 

of thought

a throughway,

my love

 

 

                    riotous love brims on

                    site

                    the animal's informal

                    husbandry

 

 

 

all the other

animals

lolled

all the others

listed

 

love, then,

became our gentle

gabled clarity

 

 

                    your wet nose which I

          will always miss

          your brindle

          your raised back leg

          you:     urchin, vagrant ocean           

 

 

 

today I will tend my dog

today I will tend to my dog's standard cast

even when I am without the dog

today I will tend my dog


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Author Bio: Asiya Wadud is the author of Crosslight for Youngbird (Nightboat Books, 2018), day pulls down the sky… a filament in gold leaf written collaboratively with Okwui Okpokwasili (Belladonna, 2019) and Syncope (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019). Her collection No Knowledge Is Complete Until It Passes Through My Body (Nightboat Books) is forthcoming in 2020. Her recent work appears in BOMB Magazine, Best American Experimental Writing, Washington Square Review, and Makhzin, among others. Asiya teaches poetry to children at Saint Ann’s School and leads an English conversation group for new immigrants at the Brooklyn Public Library.