She’s warm to the touch and has the scent
of a baby or a fresh biscuit, and we’ve argued
the night before. Alex wants to go out on the deck
at 4 a.m. and the sky is strewn with stars,
but no moon. He turns his wise, sweet, unknowing head
to me as if to ask, “What are you doing,”
as I say to him when he misbehaves. I go back to see
if she needs Tylenol, if I can help her
feel less sick. I need to be my dog
for this part of the journey, happy, intuitive,
less caught in thought and less than human,
more understanding. She’s warm to the touch
and outside the sky
is a moonless wire basket
empty of me but
brimful of stars
BIO
Harry Calhoun’s articles, literary essays, book reviews and poems have been published in magazines including Writer’s Digest and The National Enquirer. Recently, his online chapbook Dogwalking Poems and his trade paperback, I knew Bukowski like you knew a rare leaf, were published. The latter is now available from Trace Publications and on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other online booksellers. He has had recent publications in Chiron Review, Still Crazy, SNReview, Orange Room Review, The Centfigugal Eye, Bird’s Eye reView, Abbey, Monongahela Review and many others. Recently, he was one of 12 poets invited to LiteraryMary’s anthology, Outstanding Men of the Small Press.