Me and My Familiar

Me and My Familiar

In the bright midday,

in the shadow

lurking down my leg,

shoulder-length, drinks

the dog

lapping at the hot sand

in the buzzsawing of these desert

insects.

He will not drink long

before his tongue becomes

a juiceless plum

he chews,

the lower rim of his left eye,

a hard, resinous, suicide's ledge,

something like a

one-sided argument

swimming nakedly behind the pupil

to seduce me.

I wasn't born yesterday.

Always near my side

is he parting his difficult lips, nursing

my knuckles with his

dead fruit.