Dan Lukiv

The Germans From Dortmund, poetry Dan Lukiv

An excerpt // The Germans From Dortmund // The infertile beast / Embarrasses the Itcha Mountain-guide / Before two eye-rolling Germans / From Dortmund. // It lies on a strapped-on canvas bag of / Food and pots, / Glaring as only mules / Can glare. // "Gittum!" the bow-legged, / Horse-held guide / Demands of the one-eared collie / That then darts in, / Nipping a foreleg, / Barking, / Nipping a buttock, then / The nose, barking more, / Always drawing back just in time, / Avoiding the twitching mule's / Death-teeth. // * // Twelve years after / The Germans had returned to their / Homeland of dying Black Forest, / And after the collie had lost some hair / And molars, / It forgot- / Forgot as it edged a switchback, / Passing the grey hind legs. // A hoof caught it broadside, / Knocked it spinning, howling, / Into a 100 foot deep gully- / The mule's left ear twitched / When the thud came. // The mountain-locked old man had stopped. / The mule hadn't. / The old man didn't yell- / Oh, he nearly did: / That was his dog!- / But he remembered, / Like the grey mule, / He remembered that trip / With the Germans / Twelve years ago.