Alone by Jack Gilbert

by Jack Gilbert

Alone

I never thought Michiko would come back

after she died. But if she did, I knew

it would be as a lady in a long white dress.

It is strange that she has returned

as somebody’s dalmatian. I meet

the man walking her on a leash

almost every week. He says good morning

and I stoop down to calm her. He said

once that she was never like that with

other people. Sometimes she is tethered

on their lawn when I go by. If nobody

is around, I sit on the grass. When she

finally quiets, she puts her head in my lap

and we watch each other’s eyes as I whisper

in her soft ears. She cares nothing about

the mystery. She likes it best when

I touch her head and tell her small”

 things about my days and our friends.

That makes her happy the way it always did.

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from The Collected Poems of Jack Gilbert, NYC: Knopf, 2012, p. 228.

copyright 2012 by Jack Gilbert

For more about Jack Gilbert and his poetry, see his biography at this link. To purchase The Collected Poems of Jack Gilbert, go to Bookshop.org.