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Sunday, October 23, 2011

Your Sunday Poem

Molly McGillicuddyMalone gets a new toy from her Aunt Sally in Florida

This Billy Collins charmer from "Doggerel; Poems about Dogs," (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets)

Dog

I can hear him out in the kitchen,
his lapping the night's only music,
head bowed over the waterbowl
like an illustration in a book for boys.

He enters the room with such etiquette,
licking my bare ankle as if he understood
the Braille of the skin.

Then he makes three circles around himself,
flattening his ancient memory of tall grass
before dropping his weight with a sigh on the floor.

This is the spot where he will spend the night,
his ears listening for the syllable of his name,
his tongue hidden in his long mouth
like a strange naked hermit in a cave.

3 comments:

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

Billy Collins scores another hit - thanks Ann!

Churadogs said...

LOVE that last line. It's especially apt with a greyhounds long, long snooter.

Sewertoons AKA Lynette Tornatzky said...

Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!! I agree, that line sure fits!! My first dog was a Borzoi - another long-snooter!