Patches

By Jeri Thompson

He was so small
he fit in my father’s palm.
We got him at the dog pound
and named him there
because he had a brown patch
over his left eye. He was two parts collie
and one part mutt.

 

Patches was loved by my brother and me,
but we were kids always doing something else;
we didn’t play with him much.
He lived most of his life on the end of a rope
next to our carport.

 

My father told us
animals were dumb and had no feelings.
He taught us, by example, how not to care.
He was wrong about so many things.
38 years later the guilt pushes at me
like Sisyphus trudging that great weight forward.

 

Sometimes I would feed him and close the door in his face
because I had work or school. He was always there.
Now he is just a memory jumbled in the tides of time.
I miss him. I miss throwing his ball,
I miss his happy eyes when he would see me.

 

Have you ever wanted to grab a memory
to wring out all the sweetness it holds?

 

Regrets. No one gets off this ride
without them. I just have one - that I cannot rewind
time and love that dog like he loved me,
like he deserved.

 

 

Jeri Thompson is a poet living and writing in Long Beach, Ca and has her degree from CSULB. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 1994 she is in numerous publications, some include; Chiron Review, The Fox Poetry Box, Carnival Lit, Silver Birch Press, Red Light Lit, and Anti Heroin Chic. She is currently flattered to be in Donna Hilbert’s Tuesday night workshop, planning her first chapbook.