2 Poems

by Paul Hostovsky

The Two Dogs

In a little rectangle of sunlight
that could be a picnic blanket spread out
on the lawn across the street, my neighbor's
dogs are making love to each other with their mouths.
And one is hovering above the other
with his tongue hanging out,
and both are breathing hard
with their hearts pounding like
two human lovers on a blanket in the sun,
playfully kissing,
attacking each other with kisses,
the picnic basket and half-empty bottle of wine
and discarded shoes somewhere outside the picture,
as they gaze lovingly into each other's eyes,
these two
dogs making love out of nothing
but their own sweet company
on this little rectangle of sun
spread out on a green patch of earth
inside an invisible circle
of electricity.

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On Adversity

I'm wishing now I'd read that book on adversity,
the one the blind mountain climber wrote
about climbing mountains and not looking back,
about looking straight ahead, or inward, or maybe
upward--I forget now where he said to look
in the face of adversity, because I only read the review
and the excerpt, and I don't think that was enough
to see me through. Which is why I'm wishing now
I'd read that book on adversity when I had
a chance, now that I have no chance, no net, barely
a toehold and the ropes have gotten twisted
round my neck. I could use that book right
about now. And yet I wonder, even if I had read the book
on adversity, would I have the wherewithal to look
where it said to look? I mean would I remember to do
what it said to cinch salvation in a pinch? I think
not. I think there is no way to prepare for this.
This is not a test. Some may pass with flying colors,
but for others, falling is also a kind of flying.

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Paul Hostovsky's poems appear in FRiGG, Fringe, Slant, Slab, Swink and Oink. He is trying perhaps to make a poem out of his publication credits. Spring is a perhaps tongue in a perhaps cheek, rearranging all the saliva. He works in Boston as a dog, sniffing Earth's crotch, especially in spring, season of salivations.