FUR BABY
How I disdain that phrase
because I have no children,
only a sprawling yard
and a penchant for naming.
I called my first dog Frank,
hoping she would be forthright.
I have loved too many
closets, too many half-truths
that were also half-lies.
Frank refused such legacies,
possessed no genes of mine
to muster her best defense
against, though I suppose
she had some inheritance
of her own to struggle
with. Frank, so far as I know,
never considered me
a parent, never measured
me unfit, though I fumed
when she ate my papers, locked
her in her crate for hours
after she chewed through that couch
in the rented house. Ten
years on, when my partner left,
Frank’s warmth punctuated
the bed, a comma behind
my knees, an em dash when
her greyhound legs stretched. I bore
accidental scratches,
holes her claws snagged in my clothes.
When I woke, we would walk
to the park, tots with no fear
flocking to her white beard.
When passersby asked her name,
I never felt the need
to correct when they assumed
our genders, dubbed both me
and Frank him. Still, I saddled
her with a moniker
that may not have matched her sense
of self, if she had one.
She may have longed for a word
more apt, more feminine,
more evocative of sly
delights, though her earnest
glee seemed unmistakable
when, as she paddled far
from shore, I summoned her back,
the splash of her long limbs
a graceless mess. It’s not true
to say I wanted no
children, just fewer chances
at sorrow. Little did
I know what honesty Frank
would mother in me, months
I could not feed her enough
to keep up with the rush
of steroids prescribed to shrink
the mass in her brain. Starved,
she swallowed a whole bottle
of fish oil and shat grease
in the backseat all the way
to the hospital. Well
enough again the next day,
her fur retained that scent
for a year. She learned to stay
as I administered
injections, nursed her so long
I forgot she was still
sick. When it was time, I can’t
be sure if she heard me
as I soothed her, hushed my hands
on her black ears, her flank,
cradled her, whispered Frank, Frank.
—from Rattle #68, Summer 2020
__________
Jennifer Perrine: “A writing teacher once told me that no one wants to read poems about pets, and I repeated that misguided advice for many years after I became I teacher myself. If I could go back and amend all those conversations, I would say that the world needs more poems about love, no matter what form that takes. I would also say, ‘Who cares whether someone else wants to read it? If you care about it, write it.’” (web)
