Why We Love Our Dogs
       

Once, while walking, I happened
across a woman throwing rocks
into a creek pool for a dog to fetch.
Each time, the dog—a muscled, golden
pit bull—plunged into the green
water and searched, in vain,
for the rock, which had, meanwhile, sunk.
The woman coaxed her dog to the shore.
Then, she tossed another rock. Again, straight
into the creek followed the very good dog.
Earlier, over sandwiches, a friend I hadn't seen
in quite some time, told me of another friend
I hadn't seen in a long time. Our friend,
three times married, now single, and in love,
was moving to another state to join a man
in his hometown. There was nothing
we could say without appearing to judge,
we agreed. Anyway, she'd still go!
Once, somebody told me dogs lack a sense of time.
Five minutes, five years—it's all the same to them.
I find this hard to believe. Still, that night,
while driving home in a steady downpour,
I made up a dog. We quivered
with bedrock faith. I'd be there, in no time at all.

Copyright © 2010 Amy M. Clark All rights reserved
from Stray Home
University of North Texas Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission