October 2021 Prompt Me Poem

This month’s Prompt Me poem is a little different. It came out of a workshop with Dana Cunningham Anderson and is dedicated to my dog of 11 years who passed away this month. I’ll be thanking Dana with a copy of my new poetry collection coming out early next year.

 For Rainy Day, My Greyhound 
 May 4, 2008—October 14, 2021
  
 Is it a trick of shadow
 or memory’s insistence 
 that I spy you 
 out of the corner of my eye?
  
 Sleek as a deer, majestic as a lion. 
 The color of shadow yourself,
 except for your smile, 
 bright as looking into the sun too long,
 an afterimage burned onto my heart. 
 Tip of your tongue hanging out
 like a little pink heart itself. 
  
 You’re shaking off sleep,
 perhaps a dream of running,
 to prance toward your water fountain 
 and quench what must be 
 death’s eternal thirst. 
  
 You can’t be here, of course,
 but even after my eyes adjust 
 to your absence,
 the jingle of unseeable collar tags, 
 rings and rings and rings
 like a bell calling me to morning prayers. 


~ Lana Hechtman Ayers