BARK
Big dog bark not big dog just big bark I know him up our street
little dog in electric fence startles me when my own dog and I pass
Watch out! minuscule mutt with mighty voice bark-shouts Listen up!
And such truly big barks after all . . . like . . . ? Death's first to mind
death too much these days on my mind I tell myself bark at myself
how not with big dog death not up the road but here in my breast
my bone marrow my blood cells indecipherably syllabled names
scrabbling and snarling behind their own invisible fences
like the fears I hardly hear anymore so incessant their barkings
and isn't it worse nearly that death can seem a friendly old dog
ready to save you if you call it that from the little dog roaring
of everything else doesn't everything else bark more often than death
even louder sometimes so come to me death barks don't flee me
but which fear you flee won't matter to those big dog or small
fierce fusses in your street or inside you listen or not there they are
– C.K. Williams
in the TLS