While Mom Waits in the Car

Mom can wait in the car

While we run around

The park

She’ll be fine

We’ll crack the windows

Leave a bottle of water

I want to run around

And shake my tail

And tell the frisbees

They shouldn’t relax

Back in the car

Mom can play on her phone

She can blast the air

To stay cool

And listen

To the radio

I want to dive in water

Water that’s messy
Water that’s clear

You can roll in the grass

And scratch

All your itchy places

I’ll run at you

And bounce off you

And bark at you

But only

In a friendly way

Mom can honk the horn

When it’s time

To come back

Because she needs

To pick up

Kid and Kid

From ballet and art class

But until we hear the horn

I want to find blankets

To run across

And stray food to eat

And squirrels to chase

And mice to chase

And tails to chase

That either do or do not

Belong to me

You can fall asleep

Under a tree

Or in the sun

And the way it hits your fur

Will be almost poetic

Mom can listen to people talking

And people singing

And more talking

And the weather that makes her sad

And the weather than makes her happy

And numbers about things

That make her yell

I’ll dive headfirst into piles of leaves

And cut grass

And dirt

And mud

And trash

And maybe I’ll eat some of the trash

And maybe you’ll eat some of the trash

And we can eat whatever we want

Because it’s summer now

And even though Kid and Kid

Don’t go to school

They go to ballet

And art class

And they meet other Kids

And they have fun

So why shouldn’t we have fun?

Mom sits by the pool

And lets us go in

But swimming makes me nervous

Because I have to keep wagging my tail

And even though it feels like

I could wag my tail forever

Sometimes

When you’re not here

Because you’re in another room

I’m not happy

And my tail doesn’t want to wag

And if that happened in the pool

If I got sad IN THE POOL

My tail would stop wagging

And I’d go down, down, down

To the bottom

And they’d have to name me Stanley
Because that’s what you call

A dog who lives

At the bottom

Of a pool

Honk honk honk

Goes the horn

And we run in circles

Around each other

Two or three or thirteen more times

Before we run back to the car

And hop in the backseat

Having had a very nice time

The park isn’t a dog park

But any park can be a dog park

If enough dogs

Go to visit it

So we’ll be two dogs

And then maybe more dogs will come

And more and more

And everyone will be running

And sleeping

And eating

And leaping

And barking

And all the mothers

Will wait in all the cars

Watching us have so much fun

And oh so happy

To see

Our tails

Wag