Lost Dog

• When the boy’s dog didn’t come
• home from hunting squirrels or rabbits,
• he rode on a brown mare
• in the hills above the ranch,
• singing the name, “Ti-ger! Here boy!” as he looked.
• His parents already knew
• that the ranch foreman had dumped the body in
• a baranca just below the crest.
• So many shadows rose beneath the sycamores,
• the boy never saw his dog lying in the leaves.
• He called until the name became a lament.
• Those two weeks in the hills belong to Tiger.
• Finally, his mother told him not to call anymore,
• but a ghost of that boy is still up there,
• riding the ghost of that mare
• every place that he left his voice.
• No one can touch them.

Brandon Cesmat’s most recent collection is When Pigs Fall in Love, published by Caernarvon Press (terrryh@arczip.com). He is past president of California Poets in the Schools, the largest artist-residency program in the U.S., and teaches literature at California State University San Marcos. As a member of the international collective Acanto y Laurel, Cesmat performs poems throughout North America. He is a current nominee for Poet Laureate of California. “Lost Dog” appears in his collection Light in All Directions, published by Poetic Matrix Press.