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Sample
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
Who feeds camembert-on-rye to a dog,
in lieu of nutritious dogfood?
I do. I don't like the taste of it,
The taste of what could have engendered granite,
Had the taste of it happened before,
And not after, stone.
Proof
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
We couldn't have kept her.
She was crippled, vicious, incontinent.
As the veterinarians said,
There was no hope for her improvement.
The boys had seen her leap,
Fall back from the edge of the chair,
Scream, drag herself off to the corner --
Away, further away.
In reporting her days at the clinic,
We told the truth; remember,
On a dachshund's dwarf legs,
That lengthy improbable spine.
Her spine was paralyzed.
She wouldn't be pained or hurt.
They would try.
Both boys had time to settle
Whatever children can settle with ideas
Of absence or mourning or death.
We went for a drive in the country that day.
We hesitated to say, and no one asked until later.
Then we simply said she was dead.
Did I think that some strict measure of words
Could contrive a silent smiling ghost,
Could bring her back alive?
Our youngest son knows another way.
This morning, he's asked again, what I can't answer:
What happened to Lulu's wornout collar,
Her chinking, clinking tags?
Foolproof
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
Moving among active hazards,
Cars going this way and that
While she mongers across the street,
This dog, Lulu, will surely become
Her own sweet stupid ghost.
Meanwhile, she's foolproof.
Leaves drop, turn, succumb to yellow,
But she doesn't need to notice
False September's drowse.
Why should she remember
Any other Indian summer?
To her, all roads are deviously done --
They've gone somewhere she doesn't intend to go.
She moves among and across.
Only a fool would stop to wonder
How another autumn will look --
Both ways --
When there's only her slowslung maundering ghost
To have become impervious habit.
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
Who feeds camembert-on-rye to a dog,
in lieu of nutritious dogfood?
I do. I don't like the taste of it,
The taste of what could have engendered granite,
Had the taste of it happened before,
And not after, stone.
Proof
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
We couldn't have kept her.
She was crippled, vicious, incontinent.
As the veterinarians said,
There was no hope for her improvement.
The boys had seen her leap,
Fall back from the edge of the chair,
Scream, drag herself off to the corner --
Away, further away.
In reporting her days at the clinic,
We told the truth; remember,
On a dachshund's dwarf legs,
That lengthy improbable spine.
Her spine was paralyzed.
She wouldn't be pained or hurt.
They would try.
Both boys had time to settle
Whatever children can settle with ideas
Of absence or mourning or death.
We went for a drive in the country that day.
We hesitated to say, and no one asked until later.
Then we simply said she was dead.
Did I think that some strict measure of words
Could contrive a silent smiling ghost,
Could bring her back alive?
Our youngest son knows another way.
This morning, he's asked again, what I can't answer:
What happened to Lulu's wornout collar,
Her chinking, clinking tags?
Foolproof
Dorothy Z Swift. Copyright 1992, 2005 Swift Fund for the Arts.
Moving among active hazards,
Cars going this way and that
While she mongers across the street,
This dog, Lulu, will surely become
Her own sweet stupid ghost.
Meanwhile, she's foolproof.
Leaves drop, turn, succumb to yellow,
But she doesn't need to notice
False September's drowse.
Why should she remember
Any other Indian summer?
To her, all roads are deviously done --
They've gone somewhere she doesn't intend to go.
She moves among and across.
Only a fool would stop to wonder
How another autumn will look --
Both ways --
When there's only her slowslung maundering ghost
To have become impervious habit.
