You’re the first dog I ever
\nloved deeply, that I ever
\nclung to. Long thick fur
\nthe color of coffee with cream,
\ntail curled and fanning out
\nbehind you– your plumage–
\ndark chocolate mask, faded
\nmuzzle. I don’t remember who
\nnamed you. My last memory
\nof you alive: I raked the half-acre
\nOctober leaves into a mound,
\njumped in. You followed, pulled
\nmy hair, my feet, my pants, stood
\nwith one paw on each shoulder,
\npinning me. You won before curling
\nunder one arm, almost the size of my
\neleven year old body. You slept.
\nI read my book. My last memory of you:
\nHalloween. You’d been gone three days,
\nbut that wasn’t unusual. On the bus to
\nschool, we crossed the highway. The
\nbreeze caught your tail, lying in the
\nmiddle of the north bound lane, made
\nyou look alive, wagging. I screamed,
\nface pressed against bus glass. Every
\ndog since, I’ve wanted to be you. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
You’re the first dog I ever loved deeply, that I ever clung to. Long thick fur the color of coffee with cream, tail curled and fanning out behind you– your plumage– dark chocolate mask, faded muzzle. I don’t remember who named you. My last memory…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1119,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43302,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43282\/revisions\/43302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}