Linden
       

While walking the dog I want nothing to do with
along the bend of a cove that cusps salt marsh, it

feels far too early to be awake. The air does not
serve the nose a single spoonful of salt but wafts

belligerently between sugar and sweat. Lindens
laden with the scent of honey and semen. Charlie

always moves eagerly in his greetings, needing
his nose to arrive at knees and groins, he barrels

toward any piss-scented weed, so we lurch, start
again, and often, I often curse at him. I used to love

the smells the lindens gave off; they'd pitch me
into recollection. I even sometimes stuffed petals

into my pockets to share with my husband once
I got home, though I always forgot, later pulling

crumbling petals from those pockets, pitching the
pants into the washing machine. Charlie used

to be my least preoccupying household concern,
but now I appreciate how he launches me down

the streets, because he and I are alone together.
Even though he tugged me down the stairs that

time I twisted my ankle. I hated him back then,
lying on my back on the sidewalk, as he panted

above me. He was 80 pounds then. Now he's 70.
He cries with joy when I come home nowadays,

and if there is a heaven it will involve me lying
beneath covers on a bed and Charlie curled next

to me. Later this week, I'll get Charlie trimmed.
I like to have his rangy coat made clean so I can

see his shape, make sure he's not getting fat. It's
not vanity: weight hurts the joints on a dog big

as that. All tonight, I ignored Charlie, after I had
walked with him three miles down Washington

Ave., him striding ahead of me, as if all of this was
his idea; I forgot he existed because I got caught

up in looking up a gravesite on the Find A Grave
website, because there was her name, carefully

etched, on a piece of rose-colored marble. I like
walking Charlie beneath the row of lindens that

line the Back Cove, because there is no destination,
because people leave water bowls for dogs like

him by the water fountains. Because Charlie will
never kill himself, nor has he the intelligence to

betray me. Charlie just is. Charlie is a dog, that's
all. My friend's grave proves one of two things:

she would have been better off as a dog, or she
should have been a better dog. Tomorrow, when

I go to walk Charlie beneath those fragrant Lindens,
I shall try much harder to not think of these things.

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Copyright © 2022 Cate Marvin All rights reserved
from Conduit
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission