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We dropped our troubles into the lap of the storyteller, and they turned into someone else's.
~Naomi Shihab Nye

Happy Naomi Shihab Nye week! I wrote a poem inspired by The Art of Disappearing, but it needed fixing and I wasn't sure how to fix it. So I tried again, this time inspired by Shoulders. My poem also has a road in it, although they aren't trying to cross:

Dog Walking
by Tabatha Yeatts

The man and dog amble
along a route they've traveled before,
the drooping black leash
only one of many links between them,

and as they turn a corner where
they will head gently uphill,
the dog decides for the first time
to lie down on that spot,

long furry body across the
sidewalk like it was a bed.
The cars at the intersection
continue to stop and go,

but the dog only stops.
The man, still holding
the utterly idle leash,
looks down at the large hairy beast,

and looks up again, scanning
his fellow humans as they walk past
as if seeking someone to help him
with this surprisingly difficult family member

but no one can,
it's just him and his lying-down dog
who has decided that
there will be no more steps

without a break
and here is as good a place
as any other.
The man shrugs and crouches

to ruffle the dog's head
accepting that his plan
has suddenly changed,
his routine remade, and

love is the only constant here.

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A Year of Reading has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Mary Lee!