Little God Speaks Dog

Avni Vyas / "Little God Speaks Dog"
Written By Avni Vyas
Artwork by Mimi Cirbusova

Artwork by Mimi Cirbusova

At first you smell like plastic bags
and stale cardboard, a sad sweat
older than you, rose, pepper.

When I smell you again, I can suss out
your mopes (My jaws clamp it!
It’s in your arms! Your legs snake with it!)

and for a few days, your skin blossoms
with tender spots (You’re sad?
I killed it?) but your smell shifts.

Clay, grubs. I watch the blues
climb out of you to eat the sun.
I watch it grow. I snap the necks
of what sprouts in your garden,

lest it remind you of the un-sun,
the night invaded by white heads
glowing on iron stakes, or after

We trek for miles until you smell like you
and I want to lick it off you. Be your rain.

Want to breathe you, grow you,
madden, toughen, spin you, please,

smell how much I want to be alive with you.

Avni Vyas

Avni Vyas is a poet living and writing in Florida. Her poetry and nonfiction can be found in journals such as Grist, Meridian, The Pinch, Juked, Crab Orchard Review, Better Magazine, Arts and Letters, Rigorous Magazine, and others. With Anne Barngrover, she is the co-author of the chapbook Candy in Our Brains (CutBank 2014). She is the Essays editor at Honey Literary, and poetry editor at The Offending Adam. She teaches in the Writing Program at New College of Florida. You can visit her on Instagram (@singstoosloud) and Twitter (@AvniDangerfield).

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