Missing
I lost my dog & within a few days, I gained more friendships.
Some were resurrected. Others bloomed like algae.
An irregular kind of week.
But I was too engulfed in Facebook & Petfinder to notice.
Scrolling past Dixie Chic the pitbull, Lady Featherington the Newfoundland mix.
Bracing to find my canine re-christened as Wedgington or Pontus.
I still call him Kitchen Companion, Soccer, Human Whisperer.
His nose surfing the floor for food detritus.
The white fur of his legs like the pulled up socks of a goalkeeper.
The largesse of his heart.
I post my lost dog & within hours, his face was found everywhere.
Two-dimensional pixels of Red, Green, Blue.
But his presence pointed to nowhere
& everywhere else faded with the amber of the dying day.
My dog lost his way & in one morning, his home got larger.
More trees & rocks to sleep under.
Enough January snow & a swollen river to drink.
Plenty of sky to feel unalone.
But the storm’s white blankets played with his senses,
& this winter gambled with my sensibility.
I lost my dog & in one day, I lost me.
An irregular life.
But keep calling him, I say
– even after the snow’s been swallowed by the sun.
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Shei Sanchez’s recent work can be found in Woodhall Press’s anthology Nonwhite and Woman, Still: The Journal, One by Jacar Press, and Women of Appalachia Project’s Women Speak, Volume 7. She lives by the Hocking River with her partner and their bouncy herd of goats.
Shei, I love this one, it is so full of grief and so full of life.
The last dog I had, really was the last one. When he lost a battle with a snake, I could not talk myself into getting another. That one broke me. I am still sad of over him.
I felt that sadness all over here… as it should be.