The ancient dog
inclines her head up
toward your bending face,
as if to lip-read what you’ve said
(her name, food,
an increasingly reluctant walk)
lifting one threadbare ear
off the back step, the small
warmth jealously guarded
as once bones
or her favorite toothworn toy,
that little square
of late November sun
what all wagging exhilaration
has come down to.
Ancestral ducks,
white cliffs
behind a long Pacific beach,
an evening’s play, joy
evident in every bone—
down finally to this single mote
in her searching brown eye.
Half wag
half recognition
of the further drawing-in
to come.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Christie B. Cochrell loves the play of light, the journeyings of time, things ephemeral and ancient. Her work has been published by Tin House, New Letters, Red Bird Chapbooks and Figroot Press among others, and has won several awards including the Dorothy Cappon Prize for the Essay and the Literal Latté Short Short Contest. Her short story “The Pinecone” received Honorable Mention in the Glimmer Train March/April 2016 Very Short Fiction contest. Once New Mexico Young Poet of the Year, in Santa Fe, she now lives and writes by the ocean in Santa Cruz, California.