Photographs of Dogs

a day exploring the rabbit warren

twenty-five years of digital files

mined for decades from antique technology

boxy desktops, floppy disks, hard disks

laptops, CDs, thumb drives and now

this hard drive—a terabyte to hold

my life for my children and theirs when I’m gone

a ridiculous search today for the face

of the first dog of my motherhood

Mojo, border collie/black Lab mix

and the second, Leo, my son’s first love

an Aussie mix, both animals ashes now

and the third, Hank, a heeler/Kelpie mix

from Antonito, lining this empty nest with fur

a holy trinity of dogs whose faces

I will digitally carve, tongues in or out, smiling

or serious, collared or wild as dogs are

and send them to China where some underpaid

overworked mother will transfer

three canine faces to fabric, cut and sew

them into silly polyester pajamas

I will wear this winter, thinking of children

long grown who sometimes think of me

whose thousands of digital photos fold

into dogs’, reminder of the attention I gave

the beauty I saw, preserved for a day like this

when my memories have faded into presence

and every evolving pixel and video says

see that: you did it, day after day, witness

slow growth with love. Everything was always

there, the pattern expanding, dogs’ silent witness

a silken comfort to feed, three dogs who fed me

clicking down dark streets, eyes gazing into mine

on couches when the children would watch tv

or forget my existence in exhausted sleep