[New-Poetry] Finalists for the Lenore Marshall Prize

[Anthony Lawrence]

Thought I'd post a new poem to the list:

Communication

The way a dog can look at you
from somewhere beyond its face
might be a projection of my own
inability to understand that
for some, eye contact can be un-
settling to the point of panic attacks
or catatonic episodes turning
their engines over inside the blood.
I once looked at a dog in a way
I knew to be confrontational.
I looked, then averted my eyes.
On turning back, my gaze
had been met with an intensity
so pure it seemed devotional.
I found a sign on the wall
of the wrecking yard I'd entered
on a walk at the end of a bleak,
reclusive time. I studied the sign
overlong, and it did no good -
the dog came to me where I was
kneeling in metal shavings,
rust and windshield glass.
Its breeding fell somewhere
between a malnourished Wolf
Hound from Ireland and a bear,
and it offered me the mauve
striations of its gums, exposed
in the way a grin can become
a grimace, then transmogrify
into a snarl. Its breath contained
the breaking-down of a meal
of carrion, and I said "Good boy"
or "Come on, what's your name?"
and I looked for a way to save face.
The dog sighed, then made a sound
I took to be a decision that
clearly, I was not its equal
and nowhere near worth the trouble.
Having misread the language
of the body and its intentions,
I stood and made ready to leave.
I wanted the dog to look elsewhere
from beyond its black-and-tan
snouted face. I willed its tail to rise
like a flag, signifying walk or fetch,
the hair along its spine to remain
combed into into place by sun-
light and neglect. But the hand
I'd begun to extend as a token
of a stand-off come to an end
was taken and taken, and I'd like
to say I have a vague memory
of shouting "There's no reason..."
but I screamed until, hearing
the throat music of submission
and alarm, it released me, turned
and ran. I lifted my hand in no wave
of farewell, and saw the marks
of teeth in my skin, and a break
in the knuckle where bone
was coming through. The dog,
meanwhile, had found something else
to torment or maim, among car
body parts and overturned tins.
I left it at that and made for the road,
and did not look back to see
if my blood were painting the dust.
I stared straight ahead like a man
for whom contact with the eyes
of dogs and humans, when made
and mirrored with bleak intention,
had returned him to a place
where communication leads to nothing
but remorse and grief and harm.