Dog dream. By Alex Z. Salinas

I dreamt I was a dog with a broken

Nose and the only way I could eat

Was to let my saliva drip and pool in

The dirt until it formed slush ready 

For my consumption, and later, 

Somebody like Jack London or

Sigrid Nunez—not a poet but one 

Of those highfalutin novelists with 

Lots more time on their hands—

Adopted me and wrote about me,

But in their stories, not only did my

Nose work, but I could talk, and I was

Addicted to beer, wine, liquor,

And for a very long time I cried—

I wept and whimpered because I was stuck 

Inside the broken boozehound who’d spent 

His entire life face down in the ground,

Unable to escape from his nightmare, 

Running in his sleep from God knows what.

Alex Z. Salinas lives in San Antonio, Texas. His poetry has appeared in the San Antonio Express-News, As It Ought To Be Magazine, The Dope Fiend Daily, Duane's PoeTree, and in the San Antonio Review, where he serves as poetry editor.