The animal in us wants to leap
up, leap out maybe,
like the dog on its chain trying to bound
higher and farther than the chain allows
because the two boys in their kiddie pool
are bounding, scooping up water in their hands
and tossing it and jumping, as the woman beside the house
on a bench is reading, not paying attention
to any of them.
How much life can a body contain?
The dog wants to follow its small joy
though the chain holds him back. He moves toward it,
a private experience, witnessed,
if to be “witnessed” means paid attention to,
by no one. It reminds me of Mary’s mother
in Giotto’s Vision of Anna: inside
the room an angel addresses her.
Outside, a woman sits on a bench in silence
having no idea of the world
Anna’s revelation upholds. The angel
has broken through without breaking
a thing; Giotto depicts him as half an angel
gesturing to her surprise. Does the mind
break through the wall like a blade
or the body? There’s an angel
on the other side that somebody doesn’t
notice. There’s a movement
at the end of its chain that the woman
will not heed. There’s a God up there
some would say—
The woman’s eyes
find words in her novel, bound to exist
in the place she is making, in spite
of the bodies’ gestures coming
as close as they can to bursting,
a world and the words
pulling back.