On Goya's "The Submerged Dog," by Mindy Watson

The Dog, by Francisco Goya (Spain), 1819.

On Goya’s “The Submerged Dog”

52 inches of pallid yellow 
Pouring down vertically - its incessant
Visual silence invites screaming. Its 
Formlessness defies definition. Is 
It a sprawling, sick sallow sky?  Or a 
Massive mountain, bearing no footholds? Your 
Eyes pan down, down. 52 inches might 
As well be eternity. Its horrors 
Height and simplicity – un-scalable,
Insurmountable - its pathos pervades
Your crevices. Then suddenly. Just. Stops. 

Abruptly, you now confront an up-arced brown form. 
Is this Earth? Is it quicksand? Murky sea? 
An illusory refuge promising 
Sanctuary? And then you notice it.

A flash of broad black brush stroke, it bisects
Up and down, sky and ground: an agent of 
Between-ness. Suspended below yellow,
Submerged in brown: it’s the solitary
Head of a dog. Wide with fear (or despair),
Its white-flecked eyes gaze imploringly out
Beyond the interminable up-ness
To some hypothetical salvation.  
Is its torso petrified within that 
Swathe of earth-brown oil? Or do its unseen
Legs flurry to keep it afloat? Is this
Wasted wanting in sure defeat’s face?  No – 
To keep desire’s vessel - the head – abreast, 
However absent the body or vast 
The abyss – we can aspire no higher than this.

Mindy Watson
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Mindy Watson is a DC/Northern Virginia-based creative nonfiction writer and federal writer/editor. She holds an MA in Writing (Nonfiction) from The Johns Hopkins University and a BA in English for Illinois Wesleyan University. Her nonfiction has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Ars Medica and Thread: A Literary Journal; her poetry has appeared in The Quarterday Review.