Dog

As I watched a dog cross the highway
the word “dog” clattered against my head,
and a volley of English verbs and fellow parts of speech
cascaded in a ring about the animal.
But am I to call it “dog” or “kukur”?
Pondering this word-puzzle
I’ve grown old and decrepit,
keeping my mouth clamped shut for forty years.
I haven’t been able to find the time
to say “I love you” in my mother tongue.
Just now it was
a native dog came to a broken road –
the flayed surface of a national highway,
in this our land the English left to us –
just now it was, and crossed it …
a mere dog, clad in supernatural light.