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Selected Poems

Death Of A Milk Cow

Zelda was my present to Ken for his thirty-third birthday. She came cheap, having been culled from a small commercial dairy herd because she was stunted, in part from having calved too young. She was a luxurious, soft brown Jersey with large, moist eyes. Jerseys are known for their pacific dispositions (the females, anyway) and the richness of their milk, which has a higher fat content than that of any other breed. Zelda’s milk was so rich that, when we poured it fresh from the pail into old tuna-fish cans for the cats, it was yellow.

Little Zooey

Little Zooey died today. Pam and I were in the backyard playing with the dogs when we heard a knock at the front door. Pam went around the side of the house to see who it was and came back a few minutes later with Zooey cradled in her arms. There was no blood, but the cat’s head hung slack, her tongue sticking out of her mouth. It was plain that she was dead. Pam was crying freely, and I felt a quick surge of grief myself.

The Morning After

A beautiful, naked woman on a white horse; a marriage proposal; a Dustbuster

Aphrodite

Sunbeams

I tend to be suspicious of people whose love of animals is exaggerated; they are often frustrated in their relationships with humans.

Camilla Koffler

Cats And Dogs

Pills blessed by the Dalai Lama, Charlotte’s secret, bodies at the bottom of the freezer

The Man Who Hated Dogs

After all these years, my father’s rich, deep voice still filled me with a mixture of fear and awe, even over the telephone, “I don’t know why you people want a dog,” he said. By “you people,” he meant not just me and my husband, but everyone everywhere who has ever had the slightest inclination to get a dog.

A Dog Named Hopi

I tried to tell myself that he only wanted to rape me. I thought of all the women down through the ages who had been raped and silently asked for their help. I asked their spirits to hover over us and lighten the dark corners of this man’s mind.

Sunbeams

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest, which co-mingle their roots in the darkness underground.

William James