Vocabulary

The dog is retching on the kitchen rug,

a rhythmic, wet, and miserable sound.

I say it while I give his neck a tug,

cleaning the bile from the linoleum ground.

It’s different than the way I said it then,

over the pasta and the cheap red wine.

That was a question or a kind of when,

a shaky bridge across a property line.

Now it’s just a heavy piece of wood

I move around to hide the carpet’s wear.

A word for staying when I never should,

a mouth of heat exhaled into the air.