Poems with an accent

[ifonlypoems]

In more ways than one

I'm not sure you knew the extent

To which I was afraid of dogs

I'd call someone, ask passerbys 

To walk with me past a stray,

Even if it wasn't aggressive.

Then everything changed. 

One day when we talked-

You mentioned you'd have to

Leave your dogs behind.

And I cried devastated 

Beloved dogs

who loved you so much!

As if seeing the world 

Through their eyes

I understood a dog as a creature 

When the Queens ran away

I kept thinking 

they must have just sensed 

what you said. 

The betrayal 

Pooh didn't come back 

And I went to the market 

And purchased the finest bones

I could get

For the local pack

I believed (and still do) 

That dogs have a way of sensing

Each other across the distance

With telepathic connection 

Not unlike people

I gave them the bones 

and pleaded for a message to Pooh, 

That you missed her and loved her

And for her to come home.

In more ways than one

In more ways than I'd ever recount

Or admit to - I love you 

One more still

As I treasure the fact

That I walk past the dogs without fear

[ifonlypoems]

Environmental storytelling

I'm looking at an old picture you sent 

and I don't remember the context. 

The email read "Just how good we are" 

and that could have been anything 

(if I say so myself). 

I don't remember this photo being significant 

but ten years later it's striking.

An old sturdy table with a drawer at the center, 

a single wooden chair to the side. 

I doubt I would have seen it back then, 

but it's the single chair that gets me. 

The space not designed for company or a family, 

the space that can only hold one. 

You couldn't have staged a better Van Gogh's imitation 

if you tried, because it's so similar in spirit. 

To be fair, Vincent had two chairs, 

but it's the way they were placed.

Sharing a table wasn't a daily occurrence. 

I may be reading too much into this 

and more than likely projecting 

but it's in the solitude. 

But you, you also had a toy truck on the floor 

that I didn't see at the time. And it got me thinking. 

How would the painting have changed if it had a tiny

toy truck in the corner?

(Remind me to buy us some chairs)