{"id":3156,"date":"2009-02-05T18:59:34","date_gmt":"2009-02-05T23:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?page_id=3156"},"modified":"2009-02-05T18:59:34","modified_gmt":"2009-02-05T23:59:34","slug":"dog-poems-by-wesley-mcnair","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/dog-poems-by-wesley-mcnair\/","title":{"rendered":"Dog Poems by Wesley McNair"},"content":{"rendered":"

The One Who Will Save You<\/strong><\/p>\n

If some afternoon you
\nshould pass by there,
\nand the woman comes out swooping
\nher blue bathrobe back
\nfrom her path and crying, “Baby, oh my
\nsweet baby,” it won’t be you
\nshe means, nor you
\nthe hubby wearing motorcycles
\non his T-shirt and jumping
\ndown from the stairless
\nsliding glass door
\nsays he wants to kill, so just
\nstand still. It’s the dog
\nthey’ll be after, the shadow
\nunder the not-quite sunk pink
\nChevy, ratcheting itself up
\nwith a slow, almost inaudible
\ngrowl into the biggest, ugliest
\nshepherd-Labrador-husky
\ncross West Central Maine
\nhas ever seen. It won’t matter
\nif the two shirtless fat kids
\ncome from around back with
\nhubcaps on their heads and shout
\neven louder than their father does,
\n“Queenie!” By then Queenie,
\nless a queen than a chain-
\nsaw lunging at the potential
\ncordwood of your legs,
\nwon’t know or care what
\nhumans have named her. There’ll be
\nno hope for you, Pal, unless,
\nthat is, the teenage daughter,
\nwho comes across the front lawn’s
\ndandelions in her tank top
\nevery so often to set me free,
\nreleases you, too – shaking her head
\nas if only you and she
\ncould see how impossible
\nher stupid parents and this uncool
\ndog really are, and lifting it,
\nlike that, by the collar
\nto create a bug-eyed
\nsausage that gasps
\nso loud her mother gasps – not
\nthat the daughter will care. “Mother,”
\nshe’ll say, eyeing the sorry choice
\nof afternoon attire, “you should see
\nhow you look.” Then, flicking
\nDad out of the way
\nand renaming the creature
\nshe’s created “Peckerwood,”
\nshe’ll march as if she
\nherself were now queen
\nback through that kingdom
\nof California raisins and tires
\nand Christmas lights decking the front
\nporch in July, and past the screen door
\nwith the sign saying This
\nIs Not A Door, to disappear,
\nrump by rump with a bump
\nand a grind to you,
\nthrough the real screen door.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

****<\/p>\n

Sleep<\/strong><\/p>\n

The young dog would like to know
\nwhy we sit so long in one place
\nintent on a box that makes the same
\nnoises and has no smell whatever.
\nGet out! Get out! we tell him
\nwhen he asks us by licking the back
\nof our hand, which has small hairs,
\nalmost like his. Other times he finds us
\nmotionless with papers in our lap,
\nor at a desk looking into a humming
\nsquare of light. Soon the dog understands
\nwe are not looking, exactly, but sleeping
\nwith our eyes open, then goes to sleep
\nhimself. Is it us he cries out to,
\nmoving his legs somewhere beyond
\nthe rooms where we spend our lives?
\nWe don’t think to ask, upset
\nas we are in the end with the dog,
\nwho has begun throwing the old,
\nshabby coat of himself down on every
\nfloor or rug in the apartment, sleep,
\nwe say, all that damn dog does is sleep.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

****<\/p>\n

Charles by Accident<\/strong><\/p>\n

Named Charlie for the relaxed
\ncompanionship we expected,
\nhe became Charles for his butler-like
\nobedience, though he went off-duty<\/p>\n

the morning my wife walked back
\nfrom the mailbox watching him
\ntoss what looked like a red sock
\ngloriously into the air,<\/p>\n

seeing it was actually the cardinal
\nshe had been feeding all winter.
\nWhy did she scream like that
\nwas the question his whole,<\/p>\n

horrified body seemed to ask, just
\nbefore he disappeared, back soon
\nat the door, black coat, white collar,
\nall ready to serve us: who was<\/p>\n

that other dog, anyway? Who,
\non the other hand, was this one,
\nchosen at the pound for his breed
\nand small size, now grown into three<\/p>\n

or four different kinds of large
\ndogs stuck together. It wasn’t his fault,
\nof course, that in the end he wasn’t
\nCharlie, or even, considering the way<\/p>\n

he barked at guests and sniffed them,
\nCharles exactly. Besides, it couldn’t
\nhave been easy to be whatever
\nsort of dog he was. Part retriever,<\/p>\n

he spent his winters biting ice,
\nand summers dirt out of his tufted paws.
\nPart Collie, all he ever got to herd
\nwere two faux sheep: a wire-haired terrier<\/p>\n

that bit him back and a cat that turned
\nand ran up trees. An accidental sheep-dog,
\nCharles by accident, and our dog only
\nafter he’d been disowned, he understood<\/p>\n

that life is all missed connections
\nand Plan B \u2014 the reason why, perhaps,
\nno one could quite pat him or say
\ngood boy enough, and why sometimes,<\/p>\n

asleep, he mourned, working his legs
\nas if running to a place he could never
\nreach, beyond Charles or any other
\nway we could think of to call him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

****<\/p>\n

Not a dog poem, but still…:<\/p>\n

The 1950s<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Let’s take the car after school,” the two girls
\nwould say, which meant they wanted to be taken
\nby it, the top down, the wind surfing over
\nthe wrap-around window. The stepdaughter,<\/p>\n

Carol, always drove, just as her new stepfather
\ninsisted, and while her girlfriend Debbie listened
\nfor the lighter to pop out from the dash
\nand with its tiny, interior hotplate lit menthol<\/p>\n

cigarettes one by one for both of them, they thought
\nabout how the boys would admire them.
\nWhen they drove into their station at the A&W
\nand Carol unhooked the mic to order their Cokes<\/p>\n

pushing back her shoulder-length hair to reveal
\nher long throat, she thought she resembled
\na popular singer. “Beautiful,” was the word
\nthe boys used to describe the car as they gathered<\/p>\n

around it, stroking its curves and sometimes
\nasking if they could see what was under
\nthe hood. Then they looked into Carol’s amazing
\nand frightening blue eyes, or Debbie’s warm,<\/p>\n

compliant ones, the door or fender giving them a way
\nto steady themselves. All of that was OK
\nwith the stepfather, who only required that they let
\nno boys inside, or they could never borrow<\/p>\n

the car again. Handsome like a man, he really wasn’t
\nmuch more than a boy himself and, not wanting to be
\nanyone’s father, told them to call him “Petey.”
\nAs he said goodbye in his T-shirt some afternoons,<\/p>\n

leaning comfortably into the open window of his new
\nChevy convertible, he would call Debbie
\n“Ginger Snap,” and his stepdaughter, his favorite,
\nwith a knowing wink, “Angel Pie.” He was proud<\/p>\n

of the sinuous Hawaiian woman in green he wore
\non his muscular forearm and the darker tattoo
\nin cursive letters of his own name underneath, the same
\ntattoo he had his new wife ink on the inside<\/p>\n

of her ankle. “Don’t you go changing on me,”
\nhe would say with a smile before they headed out
\nthe driveway and the motion rose in their ears, but
\nthe two in the car were already changing, Debbie,<\/p>\n

who hoped each day at the A&W for a certain
\ncute boy to return her gaze, and Carol, in distress
\nbecause she couldn’t quite get the muscular forearm
\nand the wink out of her mind even after she touched<\/p>\n

her cigarette to the lighter and took a deep drag
\nand tried to find a good station on the radio.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The One Who Will Save You If some afternoon you should pass by there, and the woman comes out swooping her blue bathrobe back from her path and crying, “Baby, oh my sweet baby,” it won’t be you she means, nor you the hubby wearing motorcycles on his T-shirt and jumping down from the stairless […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3156","page","type-page","status-publish","entry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P6kZSG-OU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3156"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3159,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3156\/revisions\/3159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}