PS Cottier

Each bark is Mozart sweet. Silver flutes
are nothing to the improvised flow
of furry sax buried in soft-toffee bay.

His teeth are crochet hooks. Bites bloom
into perennial tattoos, scars in winter
flutter into hollyhocks come spring.

The cat and the kid eat from his bowl,
sip his milk and crunch his kibble,
and the robin plucks hairs for her nest.

He turns three times three before rest,
and apostrophic patterns erupt
as the canine chameleon settles.

Nightbulls may gore; Pamplonas
still run through his veins,
ghost-genes there in blood’s bottle.

But paisley outs. Stretching into dawn,
he shakes off hard history like dew,
and noses, bee-soft, into day.

PS Cottier

This is an old poem, which first appeared in my chapbook Quick bright things: Poems of fantasy and myth (Ginninderra Press, 2016). The dog in the picture was only six back then; now she’s nearer to fifteen.

The poem touches on myths about pitbulls, which can be as affectionate and gentle as any other breed of dog.