by Megan Wildhood
There is a dog somewhere
In my building
That cries all day for love
In our shared shelter
Crying all day for love
I searched the staircases
And the old boxes people leave
By the dumpster when it’s too full
By the too-full dumpster
And I brought myself
To peer into the pool
And then I saw the dog
What a dog, what a dog
Weaving back and forth
On the skin of the water
Crying for love like water
When it blathers under a bridge
Crying with my cry
Shaking like I shake
Looking at my eyes with my eyes
On the skin of the crying water
And I felt that when I was looking
Through the heaps of trash
For what was crying all day for love
I felt that I was looking through myself
But what I did was jump
Into the water expecting to sink
Only to smash the dog’s face
Into ripples that have never stopped.
Megan Wildhood is a writer, editor and writing coach who helps her readers feel seen in her monthly newsletter, poetry chapbook Long Division (Finishing Line Press, 2017), her full-length poetry collection Bowed As If Laden With Snow (Cornerstone Press, May 2023) as well as Mad in America, The Sun and elsewhere. You can learn more about her writing, working with her and her mental-health and research newsletter at meganwildhood.com.