After Reading Patricia Smith’s Top Tips: Ten Things About Poetry

After Reading Patricia Smith’s Top Tips: Ten Things About Poetry

POETRY

By Summer Hardinge

When she writes, Ya need dogs for company,

I almost feel as if I need to own one.

As a child, I could tame any ram­bunc­tious pup, wild cat,

or tena­cious pony. Some­thing like an empa­thet­ic nerve.

The dogs in my neigh­bor­hood sense it, too. When my next-door friend

gets a glimpse of me out her window, or hears my voice, she leaps from chair

to sofa to win­dowsill, pulling down lamps, skittering

across the coffee table. When she spies

me across the yard, she rushes in, shimmying,

tearing at the leash, getting tangled,

and pees on my shoes. Down the street, another skirts

oncom­ing traffic to crash into me, knock­ing me side-

ways. And when the one who lives on the next cul-de-sac jumps

to lick my face, my down coat shreds. His owners write

an apology letter and send a check. It’s not just about the damage, I write back,

it’s about being a relent­less witness to poetry,

when some­thing pulls on the vagus nerve, deep in the cortex.

I feel it when I resist, but I am animal, I want an open palm,

to witness touch.

Photo by Patrick Hendry.

This story orig­i­nal­ly appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 19. Support local book­sellers and inde­pen­dent pub­lish­ers by order­ing a print copy of the mag­a­zine.



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