The Stack of Books and the Blossom

In uncertain terms the object addresses me;
The attachment forms in my perception.
Every periphery is a tableau: those books
And that plastic flower could become
Something in the right hands. Solitude
All the same, a lonely exercise in vision.
But when I am perceived—Ah, the difference!
What wild vastness in the dog’s brown eye,
In the sound of his barking, in our translation.
What hundreds of subtle signals we send.
Does he hear the way I breathe? My irises
React to the sound of his voice as he passes
On the leash. I know him. I do not know
His master. These things I understand,
Like him, without cunning or decision:
We want to play together but cannot;
I want to bark back, a borrowed voice.
Instead I nod my head, mumble consolation,
Tugged along by a leash of my own,
In an instant losing a whole world of him.