If you asked me where you really were

what would you say if you were me.
You know the rusted oil cans and glass

bottles down inside their long gone fizz.
You lifted broken dinner plates in the hedge row

like smiles after their face disappeared.
You keep going with no point to turn back from,

no past or future to stake a claim.
You knew no point but to make the other laugh

and all that gone you knew it best
to leave this country.
*
Our dog crosses the west field

without lifting his eyes.

He finds the scent of a shampoo

you used as soap left probably

as you let your hand trail

in the buckthorn husks. I want

to say you smelled like fields

blown into a room but find

the room empty. The dog walks in,

his honey skin covered in burrs.

If he remembers anything

I imagine it’s how you’d rest your hand

on the gnarled table of his head.