My Spirit Animal

I mean, the horse although I’m partial

to the hind: who has not seen a deer

up close and clearly recognized a god?

or any small pup as they say in Dutch, kleine hond,

that is, I think the plot was laid before I even learned

to walk, before I knelt against the wall and heard

the red-eyed vireo still singing,“Look at me.

Way up high. Over here. In a tree,”

and I pretended not to hear

as I made not one good choice in college

except have a wisdom-tooth removed, and yet

I’m sure someone was there, maybe

beside me in the room, maybe

the hind, the hond, or horse who from

the first fall saved my life, who stood beside

and lowered his neck, who let me slide the halter on

and walk, not saying anything, not look at me, just walk.

Canto 33, Inferno

Then Ugolino, who was gnawing the back

of someone’s head, confessed that he’d eaten his

children after the Archbishop had starved them to death,

and I thought God, it does not get much worse than that, but

then it turned out his sin was for being a traitor, for treachery against

his own citizen state, and he didn’t need anyone’s facile forgiveness

for chewing his own children’s flesh to the bone; he just wanted

everyone in Eternity to know: inarguably, the Archbishop was worse:

“Ho mangiato i bambini, ma lui era peggio.”

“I ate the children, but he was worse,”

for what is faith without belief?

Many thanks to Argyle Literary Review for publishing these two poems in Issue 7.