Today's poem by Susan Moorhead

I've read Susan Moorhead's blog for a long time, and when I learned she had a book of poetry coming out, I immediately bought it. It is a wonderful collection that you may buy at Finishing Line Press.

The one I'll share today is called:


I need the dog tonight

It's a night of worries fretting me like old bones
malformed by years of disease, the dull aching
pain flaring up when it threatens to rain. I wander

through the house, everyone asleep, checking
door knobs and window locks, but it's the thing
in me that can't get out after years of trying

to leave it behind. I walk the rooms turning off lights
I have just turned on, not restless but looking
for direction, just the old whirrings of a mind stirred

up with no ease in it, no place to curl up and rest.
I need the dog tonight. I find her, the furry snoring coil
at the foot of my daughter's bed, a bit of fluff and canine

neurosis that my sleeping child feels can guard her
from harm. The dog looks up, quizzical, waiting for my call,
but I see the peace of my daughter's outstretched arm,

the slack of her mouth, her long dark hair careless
on the white pillowcase, and I bid the dog goodnight.

Susan Moorhead