I once loved a dog so much I wrote him his own chapbook.
It’s 90 pages long, but they’re cell-phone sized pages with lots of white space and sassy dog photos. So it’s probably about an hour from start to finish. In human minutes.
Click here to start reading, in a new window.
Just look at that face.
Taking your dog through the car wash
without thinking about it.
Forcing a thunderstorm.
Telling her it’s ok.
and knowing better.
And still wanting it.
I resort to walking alone
to the dog park.
I borrow children’s stuffed animals
and ask them to play pretend.
I try to convince friends with dogs
to go on vacation where they can’t take their dogs.
I keep myself from animal shelters.
You nuzzle it, you buy it.
is like walking the pointer pup I would borrow
when I needed to not be my own master.
His habit of reassembling trees branch by lost branch,
needing to drag each one in his mouth.
Sniffing out anything that could be surprised.
Chasing whatever he could make move.
While I wanted to drag him the quick route home.
“Gentle,” I would tell him. “Gentle, Gus.”
Common Poem 