i lie here still,
in the bathroom half-light
spilling across the bed,
my wife quietly scrubbing another day
off her face,

when the dog sits up with a start
and stares intently at the glass door -
partway cracked so i can hear
the chirping frogs outside.

i know it is his reflection he sees,
but the phantom dog floating outside
our bedroom window two stories up
has him in fits.

i tell him it’s ok.
i tell him it’s only a reflection,
and there’s nothing to worry about.

but he insists something’s not right,
that danger is nearby,
out there in the dark.

arf, arf!
past the glow bugs,
in between the trees, he says,
it’s watching us, just waiting for us to close our eyes.

no, no, i say.
it’s just a reflection, your reflection.you’ll see; it will disappear as soon as she comes to bed.

ruff, ruff!
i can smell it now, unharnessed in the wind.
it’s coming fast down our road.
it’s getting big and mean and cold,
and it knows where we live.

no, no, silly puppy.
you are only six months old, and
you don’t know the way the world works yet.
you’ll see.

grrrrrrrr.
now he is suddenly still, staring
helpless and wide-eyed into the inky black
staring back at him.

i give his tiny collar a shake and repeat
the night’s mantra
just once more.

but i know it is too late now,
and that he finally knows the secret
he so long suspected
is real.

i am about to tell him this
and all of the awful truth.
confess to the evils of Man
and the horrible things that
live in the spaces just between the trees.

i am about to tell him that the demon dog
will leap through the glass
and in a fever of hate and horror,
tug at our sleeping throats.

that it will get us in the end,
and there’s nothing i can do to save him.

i am about to tell him all of this,
when suddenly she turns off the light,
and all of us - she and I, the two dogs, and the bleating frogs-
are plunged into darkness again.