LESSONS

You’re at it again, teaching your dog
Sit and Stay, in the backyard,

on a day when you recognize autumn,
and you want the last breaths of October

to curl around you, the warmth
to layer under your jacket.

You repeat a command, hoping
to accumulate meaning,

but she’s not getting much of it,
preferring to watch for other forms of life.

Maybe time is pushing you,
the sun focusing its orange lens,

shadows spiking through the trees.
So you say, Okay, Stupid…Stay.

By now, you know how to say it—
frustration in the words but at a pitch

that rings with love in her ears.
And because you’re the human here—

aware of time, taught to control love—
you believe she should listen.

But she was smallest in a litter of eleven.
She learned the tumbling blindness,

the frenetic search for a free nipple,
then she learned the moment and the warmth.

So as you step back, you remind yourself,
Never punish the dog that comes to you.

by T.M. Johnson