The Ess-Dog

Jess Bryant has been asleep nearly four hours
on a couch I borrowed from my parents, from a storage unit in Newnan

her body has the quiet curb appeal
of a low lined ranch modern house in a neighborhood

full of rich heart-red brick
she is making the noises a forest makes

when I am awake in a bedroom with windows
and still listening

to the quiet earthy shifts of grounded leaves
and piles of moss and dirt

in the reproductive night
Jess Bryant breathes like a racehorse sometimes

sometimes with her double long arms she motions
like a wild engine spilling its own fluid on itself

sometimes she can even talk to me while she is asleep
and still make sense, or maybe

I am still connecting dots
like a busy astronomer

on the floor of the ocean