March 2018
I grew up in Maryland, bonded Appalachian, then moved west and stayed. I've worked in the building trades most of my life: carpenter, plumber, electrician. Also a writer all my life, a dozen books, mostly novels. I live with my high school sweetheart in the house we built in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California.
Buck and Red
Buck Jacobs is a big man,
gray hair, bad teeth.
He meets your eye and crushes your hand.
Awkward in talk. Fluid in walk. Wary.
He cuts firewood, brings it to your door
in tidy piles, half a cord.
Buck’s dog Red jumps down from the truck,
pads up to you with shaggy coat,
a rough beauty,
wags once or twice and then works his job
sniffing bushes, watching squirrels,
relaxed but you know he could summon
instant power if provoked.
A fine beast.
That Dog
She showed how to greet
strangers
met by chance:
On tiptoe.
Then dance.
She explained with harmony
canine laws:
One must howl
just because.
She taught how
to bear pain:
to limp, to grin,
to not complain.
Day’s end
she knew best:
circle thrice,
sigh,
then rest.
© 2018 Joe Cottonwood
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