When Sylvia Came to Visit
she brought her difficult dog Tessie and the dog
ran around for a while and then, in the way
dogs sometimes do, vanished. Sylvia, one of those women
who could actually move mountains
if she wanted decided she would immediately
find the dog and she yelled and flailed until we
all fell in line including Ed the county dog catcher
and then she did what I was hoping
she would not she got into her car and drove up and down
our long dirt road banging on doors using the Sylvia line:
I lost my husband and now I lost my dog.
A born again family came with their children
searching searching and there was Tessie
happy in our creek, and Sylvia embraced the family and they embraced her
and she promised us she'd never do that whole thing again.