A Personal Dog - Vahni Capildeo

it isn't matter
isn't doesn't matter
does it compared
with what shan't
have known your
lines are all
lines of approach
this dog's eyelids
this delhi dog's
intentional eyelids, this
doorway dog, this
dog fellating beggars
delhi exuding matter
nictitation cannot extrude
America to england
the third nictitating
poetry is over
eyelid cannot eject
America to england
large foreign bodies
poetry is over
over and out
surgery rarely happens
over and ours
dogs aren't loved
over here, here!
sufficiently foreign bodies
remain requiring incision
mind yourself it
happened before you
as you go
you're nothing cold
sunshine practised apprehension

for Vivek Narayanan

---

Vahni Capildeo (born 1973) Trinidad and Tobago
Vahni Capildeo, "A Personal Dog" from Measures of Expatriation. Copyright © 2016 by Vahni Capildeo.
Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, Ltd..
Source: Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet Press, Ltd., 2016)