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GIACOMETTI'S DOG

He moves so gracefully on his bronze legs
that they form the letter M beneath him.
There is nothing more beautiful than the effort
in his outstretched neck, the simplicity of the head;
but he will never curl again in the comfortable basket,
he will never be duped by the fireplace and the fire.

Though he has sniffed out cocaine at the Newark Airport,
we can never trust his good nose again.
He'll kill a chicken in his master's yard,
he'll corner a lamb in the back pasture.
He's resigning his post with the Seeing Eye.

Giacometti's Dog will not ask for water
though he's been tied to a rope in Naples
for three days under the hot sun.
Giacometti's Dog will not see a vet
though someone kicks him and his liver fills with blood.
Though he's fed meat laced with strychnine.
Though his mouth fills with porcupine quills

Giacometti's Dog is coming back
as a jackal, snapping at the wheels
of your bicycle, following behind in his
you-can't-touch-me-now suit.
Giacometti's Dog has already forgotten
when he lost the use of his back legs
and cried at the top of the stairs
and you took pity on him.

He's taking a modern day attitude.
He knows it's a shoot-or-get-shot situation.
He's not your doggie-in-the-window.
He's not racing into a burning house or taking your shirt
between his teeth and swimming to the beach.
He's looking out for Number One,
he's doing the dog paddle and making it
to shore in this dog-eat-dog world.

Robin Becker
Giacometti's Dog (1990)

GIACOMETTI'S DOG

Lopes in bronze:
scruffy,

hin. In

he Museum of Modern Art

head

down, neck long as sadness

lowering to hanging ears

--he's eyeless--

that hear

nothing, and the sausage

muzzle

that leads him as

surely as eyes:

he might

dead, dried webs or clots of flesh

and fur

on the thin, long bones--but

isn't, obviously

is obviously

traveling intent on his

own aims: legs

lofting

with a gayety the dead aren't known

for, Going

onward in one place,

he doesn't so much ignore

as not recognize

the well-

dressed Sunday hun-

dreds who passing, pausing make

his bronze

road

move. Why

do they come to admire

him?

They wouldn't care for real dogs

less raggy

than he

is? It's his tragic

insouciance

bugs them? or is

it that art can make us

cherish

anything--this command

of shaping and abutting space--

that makes us love

even mutts,

even the world, accept

even

the starry wheels by which we're hurled

toward death, having

the rocks and

wind for comrades?

It's not this starved hound,

but Giacometti seeing

him we see.

We'll stand in line all day

to see one man

love anything enough.

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