Poems

           

              Topper the Great
(Ode to the Golden Retriever)

He came to us from Westbrook,

Young and strong and barely feathered—

His coat the color of flame.

And “there was no one else like him alive.”

He made friends among humans and

canines alike.

Topper.

Ebullient and radiant;

Nimble and quick.

By sturdy leg and mighty paw,

Swift as Hermes,

He fetched the ball.

With supple bones and lean torso,

“Lithe as Artemis,”

He snapped two balls, one after another, mid-air.

And when His work was done—

And when He was spent—

Topper strutted home;

Head held high with two balls

gentle in his mouth.

That is how Topper lived His days,

until

 His last fetch,

His last catch,

His last walk,

His last bark,

His last pant,

His last breath.

It is always better

To avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.

For every one of us, living in this world

means waiting for our end.  Let whoever can

win glory before death.  When a warrior is gone,

that will be its best and only bulwark.

(Beowulf’s Honor-code, Beowulf)


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Number 17

Your graying hair, the asymmetry of your face, your hammertoe, and the sneaker that made space for it—a space still holding shape in a box in my house.

Alone on your floor with a stricken heart: “Lie still, lie still . . . breaking heart.”

We poured what remained of your dust and bone into a small white Tupperware box I found in the cupboard of your kitchen; and

I lowered the box into the LL Bean tote you carried everywhere

You used the box, then we used the box; and

Grim-faced, we walked through the streets of the town where we lived once, and

we bore the tote with you deep down in it and draped in one of my sweaters.

The soft sweet fragrance of pine bark filled September’s air, and dry leaves burned like incense as we passed by.

LikeGoodSoldiers, we trod along. Mike leading. Tom and I following—keeping pace.

We climbed the crumbling granite steps of St. Mary’s to touch the painted doors.

We held paint chips in our hands like relics, wondering what, if anything, we understood;

we ambled past the movie theatre and soda shop where Mike always met his friends.

We peeked inside windows at the high school like ghost lingerers of a forgotten past; 

and we sat on a picnic table at Roland Green Elementary, as if the bell just rang.

ThisWeDidWithOurEyesClosed, we said.  We headed home past Findlay’s Market and the house on the corner of South Main and Spring, and we walked atop its stony wall;

We went up Aspen Street and passed the Van’s, along Smiley Avenue and passed the woods thinned by development.

Then we turned right on to Beech Street and walked down to Number 17 on the left.

All these years later we stood in front of the house we’d fled; and the owner invited us in; and Tom and Mike accepted.

    

And I poured you, Ma, from the plastic box and felt your dusty cells upon my hand.  And I watched as your ashes fell between the sidewalk and the lawn.  And I watched as they settled along the edges, Ma, where you were “happiest” once.

*Thank you to Christina Rossetti for the phrase,  “lie still . . . breaking heart” from the poem Mirage.