Morning Light
Robin Michel
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I stand by the window
overlooking the empty
schoolyard. Blue morning
sky flushes a rising pink
like my daughter’s face
when anxious. “I can’t sleep,”
she said, her voice furred
with fatigue. Before our
phone call ended, I forgot to ask
if she’d settled on a name.
Over two weeks and the distance
between where she lives and we live,
she has texted pics of herself holding
her bundle of joy. “Meet your new
grandpuppy!” How many years
have passed since she and I sat
in my car as I held her in my arms and she
cried over her decision to not have children?
We build our lives as best we can.
We seek love. We need to give love.
During her childhood, I ignored her
pleas for a dog. I agreed to guinea pigs,
a rabbit, a cat, but never a dog. Always,
I crossed the street to avoid one.
Seeing the photos, my husband smiles.
“They look alike.” My daughter,
so often afraid, looks forward
to their walks together.
“Unfortunately, people talk to you
when you have a dog,” she adds.
“Yes,” I say. “Sometimes I talk, too.”
I don’t tell her I’ve shown pictures
of her and her dog to nearly anyone I meet.
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Penny, Robin Michel‘s grandpuppy, napping after her very first trip to the beach. Image of the snoozing cockapoo-pitbull mix taken by Samantha Michel.
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Robin Michel is a poet and writer whose work appears in many journals and anthologies, including one about a beloved cat in Our Last Walk, Using Poetry for Grieving and Remembering our Pets, edited by Louis Hoffman, Michael Moats, and Tom Greening (University Professors Press, 2016). Author of the poetry collection Beneath a Strawberry Night Sky (Raven & Wren Press, 2023) and the award-winning chapbook Things Will Be Better in Bountiful (Comstock Review, 2024), Robin is a grandmother of five grandchildren and sweet Penny, a Chihuahua-Pitbull mix who bears a strong resemblance to her youngest daughter. www.robinmichelwriter.com
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Posted in Second Annual Pet Writing Contest and tagged in #boudin, #poetry, Poetry