At The Very End Of My Dog's Life Poem by Robert Rorabeck

I should be writing novels about you:
You, you who never read, who's done nothing to
Help me stop doing this.
All you’ve kissed is my neck, and by doing so
Made it the most cherished portion of my body,
Do it so again and it will spontaneously become a goblet for
Spilling cheap fortified wines
For the hobos in my castanet way up in Michigan;
Catch me with your feral dew filled eyes,
Collect me and make my body a corrugated runway
For the arguments of your evolved necessities-
How in bodies by and by we look the same as our
Contingent of species, but how sometimes I might suppose for
Your soul to flutter vibrantly a long ways down different
Multidisciplinary pathways- all the way back to the hidden
Greenness’s of my forests- where you might settle down
Anywhere, but be assured of your protection- Oh, there,
I would misspell my love for you in so many different ways;
And you would pretend not to care, but you would listen,
Restive to my rhymes ringing pedantic but not truly instructional;
And we could go back further to where our mothers bathed
The very waters of the mountains’ tears,
Or I could drive straight for you void of introspection through
The vast monotone of our continent, catch you unawares
And let myself become a vase for your nebulous politeness,
Let you serve me and tip you well, and then disappear into
The educated night, pissing like a dog in that Florida University,
Dreaming of you despotic but wisely, never seeing you again
Except maybe at the very end of my dog’s life,
A wayward latchkey to the masters I no longer believe in,
The gravestones then very ready and presumptive.