National Poetry Month--Day 1

Rather than writing a poem a day for the month of April, sucking, and becoming absolutely furious and frustrated about sucking, I've decided to, instead, post some random poems by random poets from my very extensive poetry library.

Here's a poem for April 1st. It is by the poet Laura Jensen:

The Red Dog

You know that he is going to die

as soon as I tell you

he is standing beside me

his hair in spikes and dripping

from his body. He turns his head.

Canadian geese

all of them floating along the shore.

The red dog is swimming for them

only his head shows now

they flap into a curve and move

farther along the bay.

You know that he is going to die

this is the time for it

this is the best time for it

while there is a way to vanish

while the geese are moving off

to be their hard sounds

as their bodies leave the water.

***

The last sentence of this poem is so unsettling for me. The final repetition of "You know that he is going to die" and then the immediate repetition of "this is the time for it" and then the repetition of the "while" clause. Jensen just dangles us there, waiting for the poor red dog to die.

And then the killer last two lines. Blamo.