Synonyms for Joy by Grant Clauser

Synonyms for Joy
           after Bird Language by W H Auden

Mornings when a fox has visited
in the night, my dog will race out the back door
to roll in fox pee, his pupils disappearing
behind his brow in trance though he must know
this means a bath, and if I’m being ambitious,
a nail trim too, but just like my diabetic grandfather
who would risk a day of illness for five minutes
with an apple pie, he wheels in the fresh pee
anyway. And I’m forced to admit again
that dogs aren’t so different from us,
rolling our eyes at consequences,
near-sighted to regret.

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Grant Clauser is a Pennsylvanian. His sixth book, Temporary Shelters, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Greensboro Review, Kenyon Review and other journals. He’s an editor for a large media company and teaches poetry at Rosemont College.