monday poem #236: Todd Boss, "Things, Like Dogs"
Yellowrocket is a book about trying to fix things -- a farm, a marriage, other relationships -- and finding both that the fixing is sometimes possible and that some habits and hurts persist like the invasive weed for which the book is named.
Things, Like Dogs
I came home last night to find that my
laptop had crawled up onto the table
in anticipation of my being there,
and the piano light had switched itself on,
and two eggs had cracked themselves
into a skillet on the stove. It was odd
because I never make eggs for dinner,
but beyond that, it was kind of nice.
Kind of nice to know that things,
like dogs, grow fond and want
to be had, to be used, to be played.
I stood in the emptying window light,
my shirtfront swelling with gratitude.
I was just about to say something aloud
to the contents of my house, something
grand and at the same time tender, when
the first word caught
in my throat. I stood there alone
till at last a chair I hadn't known about
nudged the backs of my knees
and a dusty Kleenex sneezed itself out
of a nearby box I hadn't put there. Had
I slept I might have dreamed of rocking
gently under the stars on a ship whose
crew was foreign, whose maps
were thumbed in sand on deck each morning.
My mantel clock rang out a warning,
and later I found this poem at the back door,
looking softly up at me and wagging
its little tail.
- Todd Boss
from Yellowrocket
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
Things, Like Dogs
I came home last night to find that my
laptop had crawled up onto the table
in anticipation of my being there,
and the piano light had switched itself on,
and two eggs had cracked themselves
into a skillet on the stove. It was odd
because I never make eggs for dinner,
but beyond that, it was kind of nice.
Kind of nice to know that things,
like dogs, grow fond and want
to be had, to be used, to be played.
I stood in the emptying window light,
my shirtfront swelling with gratitude.
I was just about to say something aloud
to the contents of my house, something
grand and at the same time tender, when
the first word caught
in my throat. I stood there alone
till at last a chair I hadn't known about
nudged the backs of my knees
and a dusty Kleenex sneezed itself out
of a nearby box I hadn't put there. Had
I slept I might have dreamed of rocking
gently under the stars on a ship whose
crew was foreign, whose maps
were thumbed in sand on deck each morning.
My mantel clock rang out a warning,
and later I found this poem at the back door,
looking softly up at me and wagging
its little tail.
- Todd Boss
from Yellowrocket
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth