THE DOG'S DINNER Poem by Russell Edson

An old woman was just cooking her dog's dinner when she decided to
review the general decline of things in her west window.
Yes, there the old sun bleeds and dies of childbirth.
In the east the anemic child rises, stillborn . . .

When she turns back to the pot where she cooks her dog's dinner she
discovers that it is her dog that she is cooking for her dog's dinner.
How strange that when cooking a dog's dinner one cooks the very dog
for whom the dinner was being cooked . . .

She takes the steaming pot off the stove and puts it on the floor, think-
ing that the dog will not be having its dinner tonight, thinking that the
dog cannot eat itself . . .

She draws a chair to the pot, and sits there soaking her feet, seeing her
dog floating at her ankles in the mist that rises from his dinner.

She thinks, if I cooked the dog, how is it I didn't cook myself? . . .
Perhaps next time . . .?