Black Dog’s Bedside Manner

by Robert Archambeau

for John Matthias in a losing season,

the black dog depression at his side

The black dog’s in the room with you,

and what to do but wait until he bites?

He’ll wolf your dinner, spill your whiskey,

piss in the fireplace when you try to write.

He’ll bar the door, he’ll stretch and lean, stare cross-eyed

at your daughters and then leer at your wife.

He’s slipped the Bishop’s muzzle, he’s gnawed the lawyer’s cat.

Despite the best prescriptions, he’s made the doctors’ cough.

The black dog’s in your bed with you,

and what to do but wait until he bites?

Spurt-sprinting in his sleep, he dreams you’re prey,

caught, clutched and carried, cradled in his gentle jaw back home.

In your dream you run from him, or write

“sit, boy” or “beg” or “heel” or “fetch.”

And in your dream the black dog takes his bitch.

Beside your bed and fevered sleep

he rests his paw upon your sweating head,

he leans in to hear you muttering

“Play dead, play dead, play dead…”

_______

Robert Archambeau is the author of Word Play Place (Ohio/Swallow), Home and Variations (Salt), and Laureates and Heretics (Notre Dame). He is one of the editors of The &NOW Awards: The Best Innovative Writing (Lake Forest/&NOW), and professor of English at Lake Forest College. He blogs at www.samizdatblog.blogspot.com. The above poem is used by permission of the author and originally appeared in Another Chicago Magazine.