The Tender Things

Suzanne Morris

February 22, 2022

are what you dread
to think of

when he hasn’t
come home

fight fiercely to

drive from the
threshold of your mind

and shut the door;

otherwise you won’t
survive

this thing that
couldn’t happen

but did. Or might have.
It’s the not knowing

keeps you awake
all night

when it’s too dark
to search anymore

through the
deep woods

into which he wandered–
too far to hear your calls?–

Or hearing them,
unable to respond?

You can only imagine
the worst

though you leave his bed
at the foot of yours

just in case

then doze fitfully between
intense spells of anxiety.

By morning, though
he is

desperate to be found,

caught by the loop
of his leash

on a stump and
wound round and round

powerless to escape

his bark would wake
the dead

and is the sweetest
sound you have

ever heard.

When he’s safe
at home again

snoozing off the
scary night

you luxuriate in
thoughts of him

pausing inside the door
to stand perfectly still

as you wipe his feet
on the towel you’ve placed there

on mornings he goes out
to pee on the wet grass

inside the
back yard fence.

How dutiful he
has always been

to remember to
stand there so still

and lick your face
as you bend.

Now that he is home,
it’s safe to think of

such tender things
between you

that have been, knowing
they will be again.

Suzanne Morris is a novelist with eight published works, most recently, Aftermath (SFA University Press, 2016). Until recently, her poetry appeared only in her fiction. However, last year she was invited to contribute seven poems to an anthology entitled No Season for Silence - Texas Poets and Pandemic, (Kallisto Gaia Press).