Obedience

The dog lifts her head
from the piles of dead
leaves, and at first she
is calm, until she is not.
She can't find me. Not
behind the cypress or
the still-bare viburnum.
Betrayer, I am watching
from the window. Warm
behind the doorframe.
What is it to be wholly
loved like this? God,
how desperate she is
to find me. Walking
toward her, I watch her
whole body vibrate
when I come into focus.
I lift her into my arms
because it is what
I want. Who doesn't want
to hold their individual
god, to be redeemed by
pleasing the only
one you serve?

The Raincoat

When the doctor suggested surgery
and a brace for all my youngest years,
my parents scrambled to take me
to massage therapy, deep tissue work,
osteopathy, and soon my crooked spine
unspooled a bit, I could breathe again,
and move more in a body unclouded
by pain. My mom would tell me to sing
songs to her the whole forty-five minute
drive to Middle Two Rock Road and forty-
five minutes back from physical therapy.
She’d say, even my voice sounded unfettered
by my spine afterward. So I sang and sang,
because I thought she liked it. I never
asked her what she gave up to drive me,
or how her day was before this chore. Today,
at her age, I was driving myself home from yet
another spine appointment, singing along
to some maudlin but solid song on the radio,
and I saw a mom take her raincoat off
and give it to her young daughter when
a storm took over the afternoon. My god,
I thought, my whole life I’ve been under her
raincoat thinking it was somehow a marvel
that I never got wet.