whilst.

Eyes perusing the tarmac, snout an inch off the ground.
The two hind legs almost taking over the forelegs, the hip approaching slightly faster than the back, the dog nearing you at an angle.
It’s black and shiny and you’ve been there before.
Not judging. A question of statistics.
And the two of you have yet to see eye to eye.
Incidentally, there’s not much more to say.
An observation, a fear, remote yet acute, heavy breaths, a desire to touch, wounds to be suffered in future, cuts, not profound, but they’ll make an indelible mark. Which, eventually, you will not mind — it’s just that you don’t know if it’s a one-off or something to be mindful of. You’d like to know where you are in its system of reference, whether you’re a friend or foe, if you have any meaning at all, pose a threat perhaps? A wet late afternoon is all that the two of you will share, a few seconds of it, and no ambient sounds will be recalled. You will wonder — later, after a hot shower, listening to a violin sonata — if it ever registered you, as much as you were anxious to be recognised, on the margins at leas. Or was it your own fright and shame that you mistook for its attention? One of those thoughts you entertain for a minute or so, make a mental note to reflect on it later, and then — when it’s actually later — you only remember that there was something you badly wanted to remember, but you no longer do. A false apparition, misguided reasoning, bits of a memory that will never get to be a whole.