Correspondences

The fur is still smooth
as a clarinet or a rainbow
jumper. The lumps, though,

are unsettling, a veiled threat
spelled out in giant braille.

The vet says they won’t kill him,
but something will: him,
and Shelley, and me. I wouldn’t mind

going first, in a quick plane crash
or modest nuclear strike.


Some perfumes, says Baudelaire,
a trifle ghoulishly, are tender
as baby-flesh. His faith

in mystic bonds between the senses
is one I do not share. Still,

if your fingers were as sharp
as a dog’s nose, you could listen
to a record just by feeling

the grooves. This poem
reaches you, I imagine,

through your eyes; for me
it’s sound in my head, then touch
of fingertips on keys.

Words in every sense make up
the forest that holds us

in its familiar gaze: blurred sun,
false double, deep mirrors,
sweet native tongue.