Every day you
walk through the door
wait for the greeting
a joyful embrace
(or in lieu
a wagging tail would do).
poem-flocked absence February 5, 2016
The world is flocked white
and I stretch my toes searching for your lingering warmth.
Absent.
It’s slow on the road today,
highway’s slick and I wish I could take a sick day.
Absent.
The world is flocked white
like it’s powdered me on the trees; I’m empty.
Absent.
The world is flocked white
I want to abrogate responsibility and hibernate.
Absent.
poem-anxious sovereignty March 4, 2015
You and I are independent souls.
I move through the house;
You rest comfortably in contented sovereignty.
You do not need to dog my heels
to glorify each moment at my side
or expect me to worship at your feet.
You ignore me for hours,
sleeping in peaceful, self-sufficiency.
We are independent souls,
until the moment I step outside the door,
and calamity explodes in barks and whines.
It pants, scratches, and pees displeasure
at this, your desperate circumstance,
wailing at the injustice of loneliness,
vomiting up fathomless grief.
For the hours I am present, I do not exist;
for the hour I am absent, I make your world
a cavernous void.
Dog ironies
amid anxieties.
,
,
OJ is not doing well since Dusty went to the Rainbow Bridge. We’ve tried swaddling as per Thundershirt. We’ve got the Rescue Remedy. He’s in his safe, contained space. We fill the Kong with goodness. Still the dog thinks the world is ending when I walk out the door. Got any other suggestions? Except a new dog companion. Hubby imagines a dog-free household in our near future. (I’m allergic to cats, so that’s not an option either).
she says, he says May 21, 2012
I’m sad, she says,
her head resting
upon his shoulder.
Words greeted by silence
that hovers
like a malevolent precipice.
Why, he says, are you choosing
to make yourself sad?
I did not choose to be sad, she says.
So then, why did you say, This is sad? he says.
What? she says.
You said, This is sad, he says.
I did not, she says.
I said, I’m sad. She says.
No. You didn’t, he says.
Yes. I did. She says, sighing.
Silence weaves around them like water
filling between the cracks.
Now,
I’m angry, she says.
Shawn L. Bird 