JOHN POCH

Backwards

The dog eats our couch when we’re gone over an hour.
I think of the homes around Chernobyl, their furniture,
the mouth-size holes from household scissors
the locals use to cut the hot spots away. Covers,
carpet, curtains, all checked with Geiger counters.
Where do they dump the hot swatches? In the rivers?
A pit? In their dreams, is the glow out there like embers
on the bed of a dead fire? In their houses, lovers

must fear to touch or hold the things not counted first.
One of the darkest routines must be getting the scissors,
the after-dinner waving a wand over surfaces.
Sometimes a piece of dust will settle on a dog
or nestle on the walls of an esophagus.
You can't just go get scissors. You don't go blaming the dog.