The Dog Says

Dogs feel very strongly that they should always go with you in the car, in case the need should arise for them to bark violently at nothing right in your ear.
~Dave Barry

A poem today inspired by an exercise in The Crafty Poet by Diane Lockward.

The Dog Says
by Tabatha Yeatts

the dog says, you need
to go downstairs

she alternates
standing on her back legs
facing the door
and sitting, leaning forward
pointing her quivering nose at the knob

the pet rabbit
had the run of downstairs,
using the halls as a giant burrow

he savored carrots,
blankets, wrapping paper, and
sofa fabric...
the black bunny ruled
his den with iron teeth

if the door opens,
the dog will race down,
feet barely touching the stairs,
barking as if she were at the bottom
of a tree, alerting you
to a coon in the branches

she will watch the hall devotedly
for a rabbit who will not come,
whose sickness she smelled
in his last days, an odor that made her hide
in the bathroom as if his age
and decrepitude were her fault

he is gone but the memory
pulls her to the same spot
where she waits, nose trembling
as if the scent of hay and sweet black fur
surmounts all distances,
still reaching under the door.

*************

Addendum: Thought maybe I should tell you the prompt, which was "The ________ said, you need."

Deowriter has the Poetry Friday round-up. Thanks, Jone!