That thing they call a vacuum cleaner
needs to be killed, but when it roars and screams
 
they feel sorry for it, push it out of my way
and drag me from it just as I’m about
 
to save them from it. They hide the beast
in a closet when it finally quiets down.
 
Hideous creature! I know it’s there.
 
The doorbell is strangers trying to get in.
If my people greet them as friends, I allow
 
entrance. Must jump on them to sniff
out intentions. My people so clueless,
 
they’d let anyone in—murderers, salesmen,
the no-good neighbors who live with a cat.
 
My man goes away for hours.
 
I patrol, nap with one eye open, perk an ear up
for his car. He returns slump-shouldered
 
carrying his case, his coffee mug. Smells like paper,
dust, the blah blah blah of too much talk .
 
So I drag him outside.
 
His nose is blind; he doesn’t get
the messages on bushes, trees, or hydrants.
 
But the wind and the sky, he gets those.
He throws a ball, calls out like a kid.
 
See how the corners of his mouth
begin to turn up.
 
It takes a dog to notice these things.


© by Ginny Lowe Connors.
Used here with the author’s permission.