Arising from the street outside
Our son’s flat in Queens Astoria,
Your gentle shake brings me up
From deep water to the silence
of the resting world.  Then a low growl
Grows into the full snarl of life’s viscous
Game.  This is not Ditmars Boulevard
But Dividing Ridge Road where
In the garden below our sleeping
Window our stalwart dogs corner
A masked thief in the cabbage patch,
They force him to the open ground
Of emerging corn, whence the mortal
Struggle turns into a quarter hour
Of horror.  Too late for intervention
The fight ends in the stillness of death