DOG GHAZAL by Zakiya Cowan

The dusk’s taut silence is siphoned by a low howl fleeing a dog’s throat. 
A song from deep within the bones, seething in the throat.

I remember the family dogs fighting in the kitchen. Teeth deep in the flesh coloring their mouths 
with murder. Blood ran under the table, collecting like a slippery story leaving a traitorous throat.

One day, my own dog released a palm-sized mouse at my feet, and it was alive. The small, gray
animal skittered underneath the bed, tucking itself in the deepest corner, away from the throat

of the dog hungering to possess it again. After the dogs’ brawl, bodies split into meat, slowly 
unraveling, the air sang of metal and bite—violence rupturing at the throat.

When my dog curls himself into the crescent moon of my legs, his breaths are as subtle
as when light winds make small breaks in still water. In the depths of dark’s throat,

his black body melts away, and he becomes rhythmic inhales and exhales against my calves, 
his harp-like ribs ballooning and deflating in time with mine. A throat

opened then stapled shut is what comes of the clash. We scrubbed the floors clean of 
red, the tan tile slick like a freshly coated throat.

At night, I lay between my toddler and dog, our three heartbeats fracturing the hushed stillness. 
Years pass and his fur greys with age. First, a light dusting near the throat

then the speckling expands its reach like ash from a wildfire raging across a landscape. 
Whether he’s lying at my feet or sprinting through the yard, I don’t forget the teeth’s throat-

splitting ability–nature’s way of revising a being, turning it from comfort to predator. 
The violence can happen so quickly like an ear-ringing holler unleashed from a collared throat.