Poems

Silas House

For My Dog

I thought I might travel
to the Amalfi Coast this summer
but then I realized that I would
have to leave you behind.
So I did not go.

I prefer you, my little heating stove
at my feet, to the warmth of a
hundred Italian suns. I would
rather feel the rise and fall
of your breath beneath my hand
than all the bobbing boats of
Positano. What good is seeing
the Pietà when I can watch you,
watching me? The Trevi Fountain
has nothing on our little spot
down by our creek where you like
to doze while I read.

Northern Lights

I longed for you before I knew
you; that’s what I always think
when something like this happens.
I never dreamt I would see them,
especially from my own back porch
right here in Kentucky. But there
they are. The richest purple, glowing
green, the blush of them,
an undulating mystery
as abstract as the enigma that brings
two people into the same orbit .
Here we are, watching them, together,
and we always will be, even when
we are nothing more than sky.