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Companion Animals
A Thousand Words
April 2022
A Thousand Words features photography so rich with narrative that it tells a story all on its own.
March 2022
Of The Four Of Us
I’m the one who was so desperate for a dog that I sat on the wood floor of our living room, hour after hour, week after week, and memorized the dog section of the encyclopedia.
January 2022
Quarantine Poem #17
Staying at home with my books and out-of-tune piano / and a cat who loves me only when she’s out of food is nothing new. / I’m OK. Thank you for asking. I have become quite used to sending / thoughts and prayers to those who keep the world going round / while I spin old punk records — Dead Kennedys, Buzzcocks, Crass — / lamenting days long past.
December 2021Relationship Tips
I put aside the previous rejections and try again. This time I don’t mess around with coffee. I don’t want anything that might allow her a graceful out or result in a request to be friends. I have friends. I ask her on a dinner date.
October 2021
Better
My eyes filled again. Filippo came by and murmured, “Think of the little light in your chest,” and somehow I understood him. I don’t know how. I let the light shine.
September 2021
A Slip Of Paper
found amid the rolls / of gift wrap: / a Trader Joe’s receipt / from December 23rd / eight years ago
June 2021Ghost Dogs
What happened next I shoveled into that dark ditch of my psyche, and then I covered it with heavy stones, and it wasn’t until more than twelve years had passed that I remembered what I’d made myself forget.
June 2021
Funeral For A Hamster
I was unable to protect my children from heartache. I couldn’t keep them from the pain of it. But I could ease their journey by helping them light their dead hamster’s funeral pyre.
March 2021
After We Buried The Dog In The Dark
He came back. I saw him / in the grass, the white of him / glowing in the floodlight, / the wind turning it off / and on again. / I saw his face at the door, / waiting to be let in, / his nose leaving smears / across the glass.
November 2020Night Cows
The cows showed up just as the world began to end. They were there when I returned to Minnesota from Manhattan, where I’d gone to pick up my older son after his spring 2020 college semester had been canceled.
August 2020
