Golden Retrievals By Mark Dotty

Fetch? Balls and sticks capture my attention

seconds at a time. Catch? I don’t think so.

Bunny, tumbling leaf, a squirrel who’s-oh

joy- actually scared. Sniff the wind, then

I’m off again: muck, pond, ditch, residue

of any thrillingly dead thing. And you?

Either you are stuck in the past, half our walk,

thinking of what you can never bring back,

or else you’re off in some fog concerning

-tomorrow, is that what you call it? My work:

to unsnare time’s warp (and woof!), retrieving,

my haze-headed friend you. This shinning bark,

a Zen-master’s bronzy gong, calls you here,

entirely now: bow-wow, bow-wow, bow-wow.