Woof! A Work in Progress

My students and I were writing how-to poetry and prose last week: How to Be a Carrot, How to Let Things Go, How to Be a Bumblebee.

Here's one I'm working on:

How to Live with a New Puppy

Prepare to be unprepared

to forget to do the basics (shower, stretch, breathe)

prepare to forget the pleasure of ironing a shirt and reading beneath a tree

prepare for dainty nails to rake your shins and seventh-octave barks to shatter the champagne flutes of your inner ear

prepare to be hung upside down and shaken like dice in a cup so that keys and coins fly out of your pockets, so that the beads of your girlhood necklace finally break free from their 50-year-old string and tumble to the unswept floor to mingle with bits of dried grass and kibbledust

prepare for everything to come loose, for words like lunch and sleep to become as abstract as infinity or world peace

prepare for even your teeth to unmoor and rattle to the fir floor, leaving you to gum the puppy’s silky ears like a newborn infant seeking love as much as sustenance with its warm, blind mouth.