Day 23: Oh my dog

Today things will be pretty straightforward: a poem about an animal, they say. It can be only one.

Challenge 23: “I’d like to challenge you today to write a poem about an animal.” 

Oh my dog

 I talk to you.
 Probably I never talked to anybody  
 as much as I talk to you.
 You are here and I am here
 and we have each other to talk to.

 Sometimes I drive with you in the back
 and it’s stressful enough
 to drive around Rome
 but then I have to park too
 so I offer it to you, this part.
 You seem so fresh
 and eager.

 You always wish to take my worries away,
 melt my sorrow,
 lick my wounds.
 Especially the ones you caused.

 I started explaining to you  
 when you were little
 what would happen next,
 where we were going,
 who was coming over,
 so now you count on it.

 For your birthday
 my mother wrote you a poem.
 Not a poem, a rap, she is a rapper.
 And you were staring into the speakers
 as my mom was rapping,
 alert, without a move,
 fully confident that it was for you.

 I tried many things when you were little:
 showing you five fingers  
 for a five-minute wait,
 both hands for ten,
 and both hands twice for twenty,
 and if I did this last
 you lied down
 because clearly the wait would be long.

 I hid behind a tree  
 for you to find me.
 I waited for quite a while
 and then you came strolling by
 from the other side
 as if asking:  
 “Coming?”

 The way you find things  
 I lose.
 I started to count on that.
 The last time was a button
 by the road.
 Before doing the same walk the next day
 I showed you the remaining buttons on my coat,
 looked into your eyes
 and said:
 “See? One is missing.
 Will you find it for me?”

 And we walked to the station.
 I looked down left and right,
 and thought it impossible
 to find that button again
 and grew discouraged
 and stopped looking,
 but then you stopped
 to smell a dandelion
 and what was there next to it
 if not my button?

 And I laughed
 and cheered
 and hugged you
 and you showed surprise again:
 “What did I do?”
 You do.  
 Keep doing what you do
 so well.
 Live.
 Love.
 Smell the dandelions. 
  

---

The photos are pretty straightforward too, of our good life. Listen to this advice if it’s all you ever do: get a dog.

“Hi, here you are.”

My two beasties.

Sometimes in a bundle.

But mostly like this.

“Just look at that!”

“As I was saying…”

That’s life!

In Villa Pamphili park.

In Crete Senesi.

The lady of Sassetta.

Fed up with her yet.

“You promised.”

Leaving here again. Piran.

All I need: Siena, sista, dog, door. By sis.

For Day 23 of NaPoWriMo