Gauge, or The Glass-Eyed Covenant

When I was but a girl
untouched by the long betrayals of time
I begged the silent heavens for a dog.

I knew not why.
I named it longing.
Only later did I learn its truer name:
devotion.

I desired not a prince in gilded armor,
nor vows spun thin as spider silk.
I desired a heart that would not fracture,
a gaze that would not wander,
a soul incapable of treachery.

Such things are scarce among humankind.
We are architects of promise
and artisans of ruin.

Perhaps that is why God, in His stern mercy,
fashioned dogs.

And thus came Gauge.

He was a creature half-formed of wilderness and dream
a small and trembling relic of the untamed earth.
One eye brown as dampened soil,
the other pale and spectral
a shard of sky imprisoned in glass.
They called it “glass.”
I called it prophecy.

His fur bore the scattered constellations of a leopard,
and in learning his lineage
Catahoula
I felt I had uncovered an ancient scripture
written solely for me.

This was my dog.
Mine.
As surely as sorrow belongs to winter.

Voices rose against him.
Dogs are work.
Dogs are forbidden.
Dogs are not allowed.

But the heart is a tyrant,
and mine whispered only:
Go.

So I drove three solemn hours
through a corridor of doubt.

The women led me to a quiet chamber
a room hushed like a chapel before confession.
In my hands I held a tiny lamb
white, foolish, tender
as if innocence could be bartered for love.

He was larger than I had imagined.

They carried him in as though he were a small bear
great paws foretold of gravity,
of weight,
of permanence.

They set him down.

He did not rush me.
He did not beg.
He retreated to the corner,
pressed himself to it
as though the wall were the only certainty left to him.

His head lowered.
His eyes lifted.

That look
oh, that look
a plea without sound,
a question without accusation.

And in that suspended breath of time,
I knew.

Call it madness.
Call it loneliness given flesh.
But I met my soulmate in that cornered creature.

Not all soulmates arrive in human form.
Some come furred and trembling,
bearing paws instead of promises.

He would not take the lamb.
He would not perform joy.
While other pups would have leapt and barked,
he sat as a statue carved from caution,
studying me
as though I were the one seeking rescue.

At last I crossed the distance between us.

I gathered him
that wary, beating heart
and whispered,

“No performance needed, little one.
I love you regardless.”

And so we departed.

A fluff-bound covenant rode beside me,
silent, sacred, irrevocable.

That day was among the happiest of my mortal life
for I did not leave alone.

Our journey began in that quiet room,
in that corner where fear met devotion
and devotion prevailed.

And what a journey it would become.