Today's poem is by Amy Holman

The Heart is Quiet
       

Why did the dog in Trinidad return to the burning house
after he saved his sleeping man? Nobody else inside, the man said,
yet his dog ran back. Even a scientist reportedly mourned the death

of the parrot in her lab when she knew he was not a colleague
with whom to lunch. Dogs make distinctions, too. We're not them,
obviously, but they try not to make us feel on the fringe

because of it, even if we can fly off the handle. In the ashes
were the bodies of the dog and parrot. (The man in his kitchen,
his bird remarking, the dog dancing toward a morsel, guests

arriving. Such bustle and color in the heart, everyone talking
and eating.) Is there anyone else inside, they asked the choking man
when his dog ran back. He made the wrong distinction.

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Copyright © 2023 Amy Holman All rights reserved
from Captive
Saddle Road Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission