by Penelope Scambly Schott
I was inside at my desk.
The dog poked her nose into my hip.
I didn’t feel like walking her.
I didn’t want to go out.
We went out.
We cut across the school football field.
At the fifty-yard line the dog rolled in the grass.
We walked into the shade behind the gym.
I lay down on the lawn.
The dog lay down next to me.
Her fur was warm against my bare arm.
She licked my shoulder.
My shoulder was suddenly cool.
Even the grass remembered cool.
I am telling you this on a warming planet,
on a planet that still has people and dogs.
I want to say we went home
but it’s all home, isn’t it?
Penelope Scambly Schott is a past recipient of the Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Her newest book is On Dufur Hill, poems about the cycle of the year in a small wheat-growing town.