The Lady and the Tramp

By Bruce Guernsey
As my mother’s memory dims   
she’s losing her sense of smell   
and can’t remember the toast   
blackening the kitchen with smoke   
or sniff how nasty the breath of the dog   
that follows her yet from room to room,   
unable, himself, to hear his own bark.   

It’s thus they get around,   
the wheezing old hound stone deaf   
baying like a smoke alarm   
for his amnesiac mistress whose back   
from petting him is bent forever   
as they shuffle towards the flaming toaster   
and split the cindered crisp that’s left.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright © 2007 by Bruce Guernsey, whose newest book, New England Primer, was published by Cherry Grove Collections (WordTech Communications) in 2008. Poem reprinted from Spoon River Poetry Review, Vol. XXVI, no. 2, by permission of the author.
Source: 2007