Directions

As you leave the L'Enfant Plaza station,
you will pass under an astronaut wall hanging,
slightly different with each exit.

You want the one with the open mask,
and where you might think there would be a man's face,
there is a dog peaking out of the helmet.

Yes, a dog.
Well, he doesn't look uncomfortable,
but it is a human spacesuit
and normally, dogs don't like being suspended.
I imagine the dog is floating in space
as if he were on hind legs,
occasionally kicking downward for momentum
or wagging his tail in the joy of letting go.

Anyway, pass that,
ride two escalators
and turn left at the woman in a yellow smock
handing out free newspapers.

Don't worry.
She'll be there.

Charlie and Ginsu Wake up the House

Each day begins around 6
with what my mother calls
"the thundering hooves of the buffalo"
as they stampede from blanket-nested dogbeds
in the garage up two flights
and into her bed.

Surprisingly loud paw-thumping
rumbles past my bedroom door.
A streak of brown and a slower blur of white.
They aren't used to me being home,
otherwise they might stop in for a wake-up.

Dad has come back
from his morning walk
and lovingly surrendered
years of no dogs on the bed.

Their marriage has evolved
into no dogs under the covers,
which is well-respected law,
as the fleas and fur clearly outweigh
the benefits of the wriggling lumps in the blanket.