photo by me

american life in poetry: column 043

by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate

Unlike the calculated expressions of feeling common to its human masters, there is nothing disingenuous about the way a dog praises, celebrates, frets or mourns. In this poem David Baker gives us just such an endearing mutt.

Mongrel Heart

Up the dog bounds to the window, baying
  like a basset his doleful, tearing sounds
    from the belly, as if mourning a dead king,

and now he’s howling like a beagle — yips, brays,
  gagging growls — and scratching the sill paintless,
    that’s how much he’s missed you, the two of you,

both of you, mother and daughter, my wife
  and child. All week he’s curled at my feet,
    warming himself and me watching more TV,

or wandered the lonely rooms, my dog shadow,
  who like a poodle now hops, amped-up windup
    maniac yo-yo with matted curls and snot nose

smearing the panes, having heard another car
  like yours taking its grinding turn down
    our block, or a school bus, or bird-squawk,

that’s how much he’s missed you, good dog,
  companion dog, dog-of-all-types, most excellent dog
    I told you once and for all we should never get.

Reprinted from “The Southeast Review,” Vol. 23, No. 2, 2005, by permission of the author, whose newest book of poetry is “Midwest Eclogue,” W. W. Norton (2005). Copyright (c) 2005 by David Baker. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.