ANTHONY WATKINS- Tallahassee, FL, USA

in the warm grass
of this overgrown courtyard.
He is the last, as am I,
the old lady died and I am
left as the keeper.

Not the owner.

Someone who has never been
to Venice owns the place,
but it is mine as long as I live.

He watches me, as he usually does.

He was born here, half basset,
half blue tick, his mother
the blue tick I brought from Kentucky
and the basset a  passing stranger.

His eyes are weak.

He has never left the garden,
except the once as a puppy
and the old lady, not so old then,
and quite alive, yelled and cursed
in Italian at me, at him
as he sniffed the boat dock
and I gathered him up and brought him
back to his forever green prison.

I sit on the rust pocked white painted iron chair,
writing another poem no one will ever read.

We will die here, someday, in this garden,
and the vines will overtake us.

I think of the Aspern Papers,
who knows what he thinks of.