Dog Religion Poem by Ken Craft

Each morning he rises and bows
before me, parable of humility,
paws yawning against slippery slate,
maw stretched, a mute MGM lion.

The hollow rattle of dry meal
raining in his aluminum bowl
pops his ears. Every day,
novelty in the ritual of repetition;
every day, Pavlovian ear perk.
Like heartbeats and bad breath.
Just so.

Politely waiting for me
to move, he approaches the orb
demurely, noses in, crunches the bland
and the brown. That lovable greed.
Those stained, pacifist teeth.

He feeds. License and rabies tag
keep time at bowl's edge. And always,
in the end, one dry kibble
remains in a bowl cirrus-streaked
with spit: his offering
to the food gods, his prayer
answered each miraculous day.