Nothing but a hound dog

By Olivia Gwyn 

I let my poem out the door

and it runs on short legs

to go see the world

He sniffs the grass 

and doggedly chases

an audience

The squirrels easily outpace 

him with other things

on their mind

It doesn’t take long of this 

before he’s panting and looking 

for something to drink

He plops down on the short hay bales 

and scratches himself, wondering

if there’s something he should change

Eventually, he falls asleep

he didn’t notice, but a few people 

paused to admire him as he slept

He would’ve watched his drool 

if he’d known, but he’s a basset hound 

and he didn’t know

By the time he wakes up

it’s cooling down 

but the ground is still warm 

And he doesn’t feel like looking

for an audience, so

he lopes back home

I open the door 

and rub his ears

and he licks my face

And who cares about an audience anyway?

 

You are only 6 weeks old when you start smiling at yourself in the mirror

And I don’t need to 

use too many fancy 

words to say

I hope you never stop,

delighted at what you find there—

a miracle, remembering

How when God made 

you he made everything 

out of nothing

My whole world 

— olivia gwyn 

I watch my dad's sister cry

I watch my dad's sister cry

I watch as my dad’s sister cries,
telling us her dad will miss breakfast, and tries

to act like it’s not the beginning of the end, 

the forgetting

I listen as my friend tells me how much older

her parents are after being away,

how it feels like they’re leaving bit by bit 

every time she turns away

The loss never goes away
I keep waiting for it to pack up and go west, 
to leave me to plant my gardens and frame my pictures and buy flowers 

that remind me of you

But it lingers 

even before the loss has come
on the periphery,
like the blurred edges of a sepia photograph

Hasn't it always been this way?

I wait with bated breath 

for an answer,

begging under my breath 

to be proven wrong

— olivia gwyn