Art Chowder September | October, Issue 17 | Page 33

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a
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to Look//to Find
I hear the old dog climb
from his bed, cross
the kitchen into the hallway,
pause and look: to find,
then back to the kitchen,
into the dining room, pause,
not quite waiting.
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After a while he will find me
in the bedroom
where I am nursing
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a painful hip, one leg folded
atop the other.
He has come many times
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all this way, slow, head down.
I lean from the bed, circling
my arm and hand, come
here, here I am, and he knows
what this means. He waits.
My sister tells me she repeats
to our mother, stop shuffling.
Try to pick up your feet.
There are bedrooms, hallways,
doors she goes through,
looking for what still looms
in her mother’s house where she
has returned, after a long time,
without her children.
September |October 2018
33