A Dog’s Life?
Shooting over the deck rail
across the lily bed
lightning fast
straight to the corner
where the sage and yarrow
bloom, Eliza darts
through my space. She’s
on the chase!
It’s a rabbit!
Probably the one
that’s been eating my
carrots
and cutting my flowers.
The cunning creature needs
no siren. It bounds
out of reach,
around the mint bed and
under the gate,
into the yard.
In pursuit, Eliza
noses open the sliding gate
too slowly.
The speedy prey
leaves her
whimpering and shaking.
She tears back into the garden.
Whipping the wooden
fence, her fluffy white tail
bangs out a warning
to rabbits who
dare to invade
her space.
I get up from my work,
and peek
through the gap.
There, still as a foil-wrapped
chocolate rabbit,
it tempts and taunts.
I clap, but it is frozen,
unblinking,
watching.
It’s waiting, waiting.
Eliza has darted to the
sunflower patch
along the fence, sniffing
and scurrying.
Her tongue lolls
and her sides heave.
I go to the garden,
looking for a nest,
but I hear
a whimper.
Eliza is in
the yard
with something dark
in her mouth.
Oh! No!
It’s a baby bunny!
I clap and shout,
running toward Eliza.
She drops it and darts
straight toward the deck.
Her nose
disappears into
the hosta leaves.
I call her. But
she dodges my
reach,
then races
through the gate
to the lilies, sniffing,
sniffing.
I run to the house.
“Can you help me catch Eliza?”
I plead.
My husband rouses
from his leather chair.
“There’s a nest
under the deck,”
he announces.
“But we can’t let her
kill the baby.”
He searches
the grass
under the hammock
and beneath the pines.
But the baby
has disappeared.
“It couldn’t move
far if it’d been
very injured,”
he announces.
I believe him.
Leashed now,
and back in the house,
Eliza pants. Her
tongue is
longer than when
she jumped the fence
and ran away
on the Fourth.
“Did it remind her of
her babies?” I wonder
aloud. “Maybe she just wanted
to play.”
Or be a mama,
instead
of a discarded
cash machine,
I think.
“Or maybe,” he
suggests,
“she was
just being a
dog.”