“Why Dogs Howl” by Linus Elkins
October 28, 2024
This is what I know —
there is no true memory of the canine
without the howl. The bark alone isn’t enough,
if thunder could clap without lightning
it wouldn’t. There are no true coincidences,
only patterns, only those
who call and those who respond. When I was
young I would watch my neighbor’s dog hollow
it’s throat and, tongue flat, pour out of the doorway,
guttural at the mail carrier.
Maybe a dog’s call is wolfhood,
to shriek til given back,
mourning themselves as poster child:
before the swaddle of
snaggle teeth and flat noses.
I say this only
after camping once and walking
to the woods ricocheting wolven voice like hammers
hitting nails in sequence, one after the other after the other,
and dizzy with sleep I thought they sounded human. Which meant, really,
that I could see myself without them, all life as instinct and licking
the red from wounds. I wonder
when all you have left is a voice no crossbreeding could quiet,
is the choice whether you should use it or
what you should say.
This poem was written by Linus Elkins, a 2024-25 Youth Poetry Fellow. Performed at Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Ted Chiang PResents: Love, Hope & Other Four Letter Words event with Kelly Link at Town Hall Seattle on Monday, October 28, 2024.