Dust and Ginger

The dogs the dogs the dogs. A friend is facing the worst thing about them…they must go, long before us. The gift of aging is that it does ease us into it as much as something so devastating can be eased into. I remember thinking it would be impossible for the black dog to grow old, to go, back when she gleamed and raced and shone. Grey muzzles and failing bones give us glimpses long before we’re ready. We are never ready. I nibble the little red and white dog’s ears – there, I said it, I take her silky speckled ear-tips between my lips, I kiss her mottled belly with its flea-bite scars, I breathe in the fur at the back of her neck that smells like dust and ginger and conjure her immortality with my hardest wishing.

Cipher

I wait for the sign –
Kingfisher on the line,
Ordinary day in a string
The fourth October gone.

I’ve laundered the money
Through the dark horse,
Bought all the gifts you’d choose,
Visited the designated country.

I’ve sent the dogs ahead.
The new recruit is all ears.
We both would welcome
Any instruction, analog code.

Your moccasins pine in the extra room,
The tea has not run out.
My loyalties have not wavered.
I wait for the sign.