I Call My Hound Rage and He Moves

by | Jul 24, 2025

A woman staring at the sea with longing, the image of net beside her denoting control. She gazes over the sea at the distant smoldering profile of Mount Vesuvius. The red flower petals that have drifted from her hair onto the ground evoke the waning of her affair and her imminent collapse.

“Graziella” (1878), Jules-Joseph Lefebvre. Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

He walks backward on command, thick fur teeming with grays reversing back to flat.
After he’s fed I see him swimming the Pacific in jagged loops and gulp-frantic swirls.
He holds my salt in his mouth a red rubber ball. He gnaws at the tides.
He moves when I move. When I raise my hand he bends closer and sways lower. I ring a bell and his lips lock and shutter.
My hound feeds on table legs and kneecaps, on strings of shabby meat and thread, on mouthfuls of feathers and heat wave.
He lets me hold his teeth like a bouquet of carnations. I toss them into the sky bride-like and smiling and we count aloud together.
My hound sings upside down, his whistle bores holes into concrete. He knows all the classics.
When I heave my chest he climbs through the window and sleeps each evening at my feet. He stays with me longer than a dog lives.

How long does a dog live?

I ask but he never answers.

Tanya Young

Tanya Young

Publab Fellow 2025

Tanya L. Young is a BIPOC writer, visual artist, and PhD student. Her work is featured in publications such as New Delta Review, Salt Hill Journal, The Amistad, New York Quarterly, and others. She is a VONA alum. She was the 2022-2023 Poetry Editor for Bellingham Review. Currently, she serves on the Editorial Committee for The Ocean State Review. She is also a reader for TriQuarterly.

Find more of her work at www.tanyasroom.com and follow her on instagram @wheelofashes.