From the Guggenheim fellow, Fulbright scholar, Pushcart Prize nominee and editor of ‘Local Poets, Local Inspiration,’ a dog poem.
DOGGIE DEMENTIA
Shelby:
Old border collie and I can’t herd shit.
Don’t see so good, don’t hear either.
Gray around the muzzle and my coat is thin.
Thirteen, Boss says, that makes me ninety-one.
What we gonna do with you? he asks.
It’s curtains, he’s thinking. Time to take the leash off.
Stars and moons and birds and trees,
sun’s at your back, heart’s on your sleeve.
Likes it when I sing. Boss strokes me.
Each year 2.2 million dogs lose their place,
get stuck in corners, stuck behind furniture,
can’t get out.
CCD. Canine Cognitive Dysfunction. You people,
you got a name for everything.
You readin’ Boss, what you readin’?
Anipryl® works by increasing the level of dopamine, an essential neurotransmitter. It has been shown to temporarily reverse some of the changes of CCD and improve behavior in about 75% of affected dogs…
Aricept for dogs.
So, ‘Unconditional love on a leash,’
but they put a bell on me
—just in case!
And here’s Boss callin’… Shelby, Shelby, he says,
Shelby is still Shelby.
Yeah, right my friend,
Shelby?
Shelby who?
Excerpted from Robert Sward’s New & Collected Poems, 1957-2011, due out in October.
Robert Sward is a longtime resident of Santa Cruz County.
