Dog in Bed
By
Joyce Sidman
Nose tucked under tail,
you are a warm, furred planet
centered in my bed.
All night I orbit, tangle-limbed,
in the slim space
allotted to me.
If I accidentally
bump you from sleep,
you shift, groan,
drape your chin on my hip.
O, that languid, movie-star drape!
I can never resist it.
Digging my fingers into your fur,
kneading,
I wonder:
How do you dream?
What do you adore?
Why should your black silk ears
feel like happiness?
This is how it is with love.
Once invited,
it steps in gently,
circles twice,
and takes up as much space
as you will give it.
you are a warm, furred planet
centered in my bed.
All night I orbit, tangle-limbed,
in the slim space
allotted to me.
If I accidentally
bump you from sleep,
you shift, groan,
drape your chin on my hip.
O, that languid, movie-star drape!
I can never resist it.
Digging my fingers into your fur,
kneading,
I wonder:
How do you dream?
What do you adore?
Why should your black silk ears
feel like happiness?
This is how it is with love.
Once invited,
it steps in gently,
circles twice,
and takes up as much space
as you will give it.
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Disclaimer
We do not accept unsolicited submissions. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2003 by Joyce Sidman, whose most recent book of poems is Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011. Poem reprinted from The World According to Dog, Houghton Mifflin, 2003, by permission of Joyce Sidman and the publisher. Introduction copyright © 2024 by The Poetry Foundation.