Tribes of Dhofar's Empty Quarter

What I was doing with my white teeth exposed/ like that on the side of the road I don’t know,/ and I don’t know why I lay beside the sewer/ so that the lover of dead things could come back/ with his pencil sharpened and his piece of white paper./ I was there for a good two hours whistling/ dirges, shrieking a little, terrifying/ hearts with my whimpering cries before I died/ by pulling the one leg up and stiffening./ There is a look we have with the hair of the chin/ curled in mid-air, there is a look with the belly/ stopped in the midst of its greed. The lover of dead things/ stoops to feel me, his hand is shaking. I know/ his mouth is open and his glasses are slipping./ I think his pencil must be jerking and the terror/ of smell—and sight—is overtaking him;/ I know he has that terrified faraway look/ that death brings—he is contemplating. I want him/ to touch my forehead once again and rub my muzzle/ before he lifts me up and throws me into/ that little valley. I hope he doesn’t use/ his shoe for fear of touching me; I know,/ or used to know, the grasses down there; I think/ I knew a hundred smells. I hope the dog’s way/ doesn’t overtake him, one quick push,/ barely that, and the mind freed, something else,/ some other, thing to take its place. Great heart,/ great human heart, keep loving me as you lift me,/ give me your tears, great loving stranger, remember,/ the death of dogs, forgive the yapping, forgive/ the shitting, let there be pity, give me your pity./ How could there be enough? I have given/ my life for this, emotion has ruined me, oh lover,/ I have exchanged my wildness—little tricks/ with the mouth and feet, with the tail, my tongue is a parrot’s,/ I am a rampant horse, I am a lion,/ I wait for the cookie, I snap my teeth—/ as you have taught me, oh distant and brilliant and lonely.
The Dog, Gerald Stern

September 2007

Introduction to Dhofar here



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