Christine Tsen

Here you are again puddled on painted toes
A snoring sentinel in canine trance
protecting this henhouse, each entrance and exit
milky eyes surveying time’s shifting landscape

I move forward leaning on your own larger perspective
ready to fall into your brown-eyed world
your glistening snout my beacon
your lollygagging tongue my welcome

into our wolf pack Shangri-ooh-la-la
You raise your face sampling summer’s sweet scent
chronicling flowers and skunked air
from that fellow who got you, releasing his gusts

loaded diapers hanging midst moonlit mandevilla
and a memory, perhaps, of extemporaneous bathing
which you did not appreciate
leading, as it always does, to lavender and wetted pride.