ManicDDaily

Dog Breath With Sandalwood Bracelet

The Way to Hold an Old Dog Close

The way to hold an old dog close is
to wear a sandalwood bracelet,
the beads of unburned incense almost inoculating you
from the yawns of decayed ivory.
You tell yourself, as you carry the dog down
stairs too steep for her to manage
(which means any stairs)
that they do make beef-flavored toothpaste,
but now the dog’s fifteen and you only bought one
tube ever, used once.
The thing is
that dogs are not actually children, and though she never snapped,
she would also not be coerced; your words, your mimed example,
did not influence.  (You’ve never seen, for example, a dog pushing a
toy baby carriage, or even pulling a wooden pup upon a string.)
But a sandalwood bracelet, on the other hand,
on the arm rather, the arm that
that cradles the old dog’s head,
as you make your ways downstairs,
may just do the trick.

This entry was posted on April 3, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under poetry, Uncategorized, writing exercises. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: dog poem, manicddaily, ManicDDaily dog drawing, ManicDDaily poetry, National Poetry Month, old dog poem, Poetry exercise, smell of sandalwood, Third Day of National Poetry Month