Like Dogs,
by Medeinė Tribinevičius

The world is garbage; desire and chasing,
we wander like dogs.

– Ahmed Yasawi
Divan-I Khikmet

the kids hang in internet cafes learning to drive, slay dragons, heist banks
fly helicopters into battle, fight shoulder to shoulder, faces pale in pixilated light,
simulated lives lived simultaneously

in my virtual life I type messages to the electronic cosmos
scatter tracer lines into millions of computers
emoticon myself into disbelief,

street dogs rest in the cool air before sunrise,

I sleep on borrowed mattresses, against walls, in bus seats airports coupés,
chase migrating birds (displaced generations)
befriend lonely bookstands of foreign tongued dog eared paperbacks,

the women in the markets sell everything – hot round bread from sagging baby buggies,
long johns, apples, pomegranates, walnuts, lace panties – perched in the muck of the
market; so many galoshes splattering earth, men spitting kids squealing women smiling
golden teeth under the corrugated metal roofs,

I track dead end, dog-legged streets, mark territory, count paces, pulses, flea bites and the
vibration of trolley busses

collect the heat of pooling autumn sun, distant
crackling phone lines and unclear directions

desire everything, every new smell
every thought a frozen puddle
sedimented silt disturbed by a passing foot cracking thin ice,

it’s hard to separate from anything – this landscape, the dry dusty steppes, a limping
horse, a bitch with long nipples snapping up M&M’s in the dusty bus station, a wild dog
curled up with its tail tight between his legs, trying to keep warm, the road shiny with
wear, oil and rubber, the sky a flat blue and everyone in this marshrutka is asleep
dreaming blue and white dreams, black prayer beads swaying from the rear view mirror,
the growling rhythm of the GAZ engine, even the lake in passing cannot lift me from the
cold emptiness of November flatness in this scooped out landscape, the flat earth and
acres of mine tunnels eating away the metal bones of this steppe,

nothing so easy as excavation, nothing inside to root out just brackish water and a
metallic taste in my mouth, a nomad bundled in woolen hat and quilted coat lies in a low
hollow, his horse grazes next to him, his dog keeps watch of the sheep,

a German shepherd skulks low from a block of Soviet apartments, balconies glassed in,
wood frames pressing against the concrete,

a coat that mattes, falls out then returns like spring
with sheen soon coated in soot and salt,
combustion and desire,                                         want

smoking garbage fires and early morning light
two stars like holes in the sky
two canines like words, hanging,

a dog knows everything,
sees everything,
but can say nothing.