Instructions for What it Means to be Human

 -After Joy Harjo

Go on with your terror—
The dog hit by a car
on your front street,
as you run crying out,
scrape your knees
kneeling on the pavement
with the poor dog’s ghost
limp in your arms.
What you wouldn’t give to go back
before the terrible suffering,
before the screech of brakes.
Even before the world begins.

Go on eating to live.
Stare down at this table
where you prepare
the animal for burial.
Your heart becoming
the canopy of a willow tree.

Go on with your poor
falling-down self.
No matter what.
It is here that we make
men and not enemies
of ourselves.

Go on with your laugh,
and the dog’s last sweet bite
pulling on his roped toy.
In your dreams, celebrate
the gifts of earth or
his tongue and cold wet nose
on your cheek, a warm
creature at your feet at you sleep.

Go on with your remorse.
Wars will begin and end
in your head as you pace
around the kitchen table.
It is here that you can stop,
sing with joy, with sorrow,
pray of your suffering.
And run, run with Chico
in your dreams. Go on,
for perhaps the world
does not end here.

Laurin Wolf has an MFA from Kent State University and BA from the University of Pittsburgh in poetry writing. Her chapbooks include come back mother (Dancing Girl Press 2020) and about staying in (Finishing Line Press 2018). Formerly, she hosted the monthly reading series MadFridays and guest hosted the radio show Prosody on WESA, Pittsburgh. She teaches writing at Rhodes State College in Lima, Ohio.

Published August 15 2022