Still Life

forward, his gun on his shoulders.
The dog lifts his snout toward the barrel.
I do not hear the shot, but I see: the dog leans to the right,
for a minute he halts while he falls… In that instant: it is a form, right?

A dark red hole on the neck, a real dog’s neck,
with a real dog’s hair, under which there is real dog’s flesh,
in that flesh true dog’s veins in which flow real dog’s blood,
opens to the morning’s fog like a flower.
The blood on the neck becomes suddenly a dog-rose.

(God, why did I expect to see that instead of blood straw would spread on the asphalt?)

I open the window and shout: Ehi!
He, the hunter, lifts up his head in the act of unsheathing the knife
to cut the ears of the dead dog.
Talking to me? A hiss from the slit under the hunter’s nose.
No, I say, he ran away in a morning that seems to be just right
for getting even with stray dogs. He deftly cuts the ears
of the dead dog, puts his gun on his shoulders and vanishes.
In a