1.

Its pupils (I see them now, violet) were actual holes.

Terrified, one paw raised, trembling on the ciment edge of the threshold, it whispered, down in the snow— blue fluctuating flute.

(The hushed being ran between us, dead. This being of bone, unhooked without echo . . .)

A forced mydriasis opened it, black dog, to the wind of the pale dusk.

Mythic inner shadow

(the one we like to think is hidden, with its odors of porcelain, its holes of lunar water, in the fish-box of the cranium, under the bronze glass of the eyes)

it could only drink, tortured —and meek.