45. What Kept Me Here
Dogs kept me listening
for their pads on the grey kitchen lino.
Day in & day out, I woke up to hear them.
Dogs kept me feeding them
& kept me walking in the mud.
One foot painfully after another,
when I could have stood still
& gone under.
Dogs kept me brushing them down
& fluffing them up into old cotton towels.
Those towels kept in the laundry
for the purpose of drying dogs.
They kept me thinking that some people in
Collingwood could still possess the
virtues of my dogs.
Dogs kept me breathing
by showing me how they did it.
Their silly boof heads & dreamy dogs' eyes,
whether it was sunny or pouring it down
& when I heard the squeeze of liquid
through their stomachs,
I felt my own hunger pains
& stepped out,
able to do something about it. |
