Sometimes
he just stands there.
Just stands,
back hunched,
head drooping,
milky eyes unfocused.
Sans eyes,
sans teeth –
sans everything?
Whether he’s lost,
unseeing,
wondering where he’s at;
or whether
he’s following a fox
into the undergrowth
while you, helpless,
call his name
until he bursts from bushes
happy:
that he cannot tell you.
That is for you to decide.
Oh but don’t touch him. This you may do:
let the auricle trap the ghostly filaments
of his dreams; let malleus, incus and stapes
deliver them into the cochlea’s sanctum.
Don’t speak to him. But this you may do:
Let the intangible particles of his slumber
be warmed by keen turbinates, let them
drop anchor in the olfactory epithelium.
Stay! Do not move. Though this you may do:
wave by invisible sine wave, let the heave
of his night hunt pierce the cornea, traverse
the bulbus oculi, and enter the retina.
Do not presume further. This must suffice –
there are lines which shall not be crossed,
lands which uninitiated feet may not tread.
Time itself will stop for an old dog asleep.
whypoetry 