Dog City, New York

It's a dog city out here.

My day becomes a catalog of dogs. 
This, I’m learning, means spring.
I see a three-legged dog every day.
In the neighborhood:
Them and the old white Samoyed 
with all his legs, 
whose owner looks just like him.
When I wave, he never waves back,
but I attribute it to a slow bloom,
white and pink buds.
This means spring.
I’m learning.
In my building:
A big, sweet dog, loved dearly 
by the couple downstairs.
Once, they lost their cat and hung
signs in vivid color on all the doors, 
HAVE YOU SEEN FRANKLIN? 
We learn: He is a nice cat,
responds to Frankie. 
He must be very scared, 
all alone out there. 
He doesn’t like to be pet on his belly.
We didn’t know they had a cat
until he was lost,
but God, what a relief, as the sun set, 
my head on your chest, a voice 
out the window: 
Oh, Franklin,
hi, baby.
How strange and how sweet, 
this taste of life, I whisper
in the dark:
I have a nightly and violent dream.
In it, you are a dog,
or I am a dog,
or we are both dogs and love viciously,
with our teeth sunk in.
I learn that this, too, means spring.
In the park:
Paying attention is currency, 
I learn of spring in ribbons.
A stick thrown, a slant of light.
your hand, mine,
the park bench, our day spent,
a parade of dog,
the sweetness in air.
Man's best friend,
this dog from hell.
My empathetic impulse, 
its sympathetic result.
A cup,
its overflow.