No Need to Be Strong

My Three-Legged Dog is a story poem, a reflection on friendship, love, recovery and the power of the ordinary.

My Three-Legged Dog – Story Poem

My three-legged dog and I are one 
 and the same, he likes licking his belly
 as much as I like dancing around an ice
 cream with my tongue, brain freezing
 and descending into a winter of glut
 snow and vengeful ice. His tail spins
 when he gets a whiff of me, I see him
 crestfallen when I leave. No one does
 that. Maybe it’s because I keep his lost 
 limb in a jar on the mantlepiece or 
 ‘cause I play fetch with him every day 
 ever since the amputation the day after I 
 left the hospital, marbles gathered, me 
 shoved out into a mountain of snow with 
 only a dog leash to guide me, the only 
 voices, the ones within, muffled. As he 
 jumped the garden wall, the neighbour's 
 hedge clipper stole his hindleg, the one 
 now in the jar on the mantlepiece. Keep 
 an eye on his stitches and change his 
 bandage every day, the vet told me, kept 
 saying how I had to walk him every day, 
 every day, every day, he said, had his 
 secretary phone me at the crack of 
 dawn every day, every day telling me to 
 walk the dog. So, I did. We must have 
 been a sight, him with his three legs, 
 hobbling, me on ice, shuffling, the sun
ahead, the breeze behind, the road 
 rising up to meet us.

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