King Alfred

We lost her in late spring a few weeks

after my daughter was born, so busy with

the newness of parenthood, too caught up in

jaundice, diapers and feeding schedules that

we barely noticed her fading in our backyard, fur

grown coarse and shaggy, eyes sunken as her

days ran out, just as our child’s were beginning.

On the last day, she didn’t want to go, lingering

by my chair as I held the baby, shaking her collar

for a final time as she trotted out the door. That night

I heard her tags jingle in the empty space and knew.

Come fall I planted bulbs on top the grave by her

vacant doghouse, big and showy daffodils next

to the leather collar and tags, her favorite toys, all

trumpeting a dog’s loyalty within the king’s burial mound.

NaPoWriMo #23

I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. Won’t you join me in poetry?

Wash Day

On my hands and knees
I scrub away your life
left in tile cracks and corners
of walls, the fine hairs
from countless days shed
waiting by our door
released in the snap of
doormat, the mop shaking
off memories from
fifteen years’ worth of
vigilance against life’s
marauders and circling
storms that dared threaten
your family, while carpet worn
into your shape testifies
to a loyalty that reaches far
beyond a dog’s age, for
when these windows crack
open to air out the void,
I feel you brush by, cleansed.
 
 *For the canine companion we lost last week.
 
NaPoWriMo #17
 
I’m writing a poem every day in April as part of NaPoWriMo’s celebration of National Poetry Month. We may be able to live without poetry, but who would want to?

Photo Friday: The Queen’s Dog

For almost 14 years, she has been the royalty of our house. I am but a handmaid and the cat is barely recognized except for an occasional butt sniff.

She is all Welsh Pembroke with fairy marks to prove it. Somewhere down the line she must share a pedigree with Elizabeth II’s litter.

I don’t know how m’lady feels about the royal wedding today. She has yet to comment.