Sunrise sniff…
doxie under cover.
Suddenly the whole bed is sniffing to life.
He’s rising up -
like magma -
our volcano,
Hood or St. Helens -
wiggly wiener,
with his pink pig squeaky toy.
Slo-mo calico
stretches and expands,
casting Halloween black cat shadows
on the farmhouse wall
in night-light glow.
I’m pressing my eyes closed,
fighting awake,
resisting alert,
pretending to sleep.
Moist meat dripping off last night’s grill
was his morning-after alarm clock
or was it all just another dandy doxie dream?
Hard to tell the difference,
as mere mortal.
I can smell grass in the yard,
and rain
and it pounded all night -
percusison on tin roof,
swelling up brown winter grass,
coaxing spring green.
“Uh-uh- uh- uh- uh… Uh-uh- uh- uh- uh…”
staccato call
in the yard
quail coaxing
sunrise to peep.
It’s soggy out there.
Heavy air, out;
heavy breathing, in.
He squeezes out,
like over-stuffed sausage,
like a tube of toothpaste,
burrowing,
gaining speed like an underground tunnel bore-
-still boring -
pushing against gravity
and resistance of
sleepy time
and a mangled, tangled bed.
Fat cat stretches out,
expanding to fill up the rest of the Queen.
His super-sized, no-talky, no-hairy, dog-momma
is rolled-taco’d,
teetering on the edge -
as the boring machine does its daily dog thing.
He’s my dinky. My doxie. My Doodle.
Hundred and thirteen year old hardwoods
creak awake
under tiny black toenails.
He’s padding out
in sneaky slippers and
weiner wags.
- Dog yoga stretch -
and that creaky sound like a rusty door hinge
for his joker-wide yawn.
Downward dog.
Cat.
Then camel.
Then sausage dog again.
Squinty eyes,
- mischievous -
but never as reliable as old-friend-nose.
The sliding glass view of the outside world –
eagle soars,
hunting for doxie or grey digger or bunny breakfast.
Deep, dark pink-brown shadows,
and hints of purple
and maybe periwinkle
and a sliver of day-glow orange
and one tiny strand of near-yellow.
Just after dawn. Just before daylight.
Piecing call of hunter hawk splits the sky…
(….hmmm, maybe not….
Dog Son dachshund holds off a few minutes….)
…then, dog door flaps open wide
like a big joker grin,
and he’s off, and out…
to measure and mark…
that magical world of scents
and sensibility
and scenic area splendory.
Creaky old cuckoo clock
startles awake,
a little off-key
and
more than a little off-time.
Like me.