Dog Heaven
June 24 2010


We live in a state of nature.
Not tooth and claw
survive, procreate,
but the absence of clocks
and obligation.
Just the dog and I
after a hard day of play,
skinny-dipping
before the mosquitoes hit.

She vaults into the lake
her powerful hind legs
like coiled springs, unleashed.
And that noble Lab head
swimming right beside me,
determined, focused.
She is at least as fast as me,
powerful limbs
churning under the surface,
big webbed feet
perfect.

She is in dog heaven
on the far shore,
pulling up sunken logs
sodden, rotten,
rooting through the underbrush.
The whole time
keeping a watchful eye on me,
floating in the shallows.
She will follow me back
stroke-for-stroke
our heads almost touching.

She thinks it’s a race
because everything is a contest.
I let her win,
gracefully, of course.
Or so I like to imagine,
because this Olympian pup
can dog-paddle faster
than my best front-crawl.
She wins by a nose,
an unfair advantage
for a Lab!