Car Cure

Blended with the floor boards,
so we named him Oak.
Stood like a sawhorse blocking a child
from the street as if to say I will not let you die.
A predator, ate teddy bears. More than anything
loved to ride in our car.

Stumbled one day groaning to the yard,
collapsed on a bed of blooming lilies.
In the house Rose discovered
he’d eaten most of a braided hearth rug
like swallowing a rope of rags.
Why?

Would not explain, would not budge,
would not open his eyes in that garden,
not for love nor bacon. Insides aflame,
between gurgle and sigh,
waiting to die.

Rose would not let him.
Home alone, she could not lift eighty pounds
of yellow Lab but in stroke of genius
drove the car across flowers right up to Oak,
and she opened the door.

He cocked a blond eyebrow.
Slowly in agony raised himself.
Clumsily with a push on his behind
climbed into the vintage VW,
wedged his head out the window.
Sunday, ranchland, no vet.

Rose drove. For miles.
Doggy head lifted, neck stretched.
Nose inhaled fresh rolling scents
of pastures green, of dirt road dust.
He panted — with dangled tongue,
with ancient lust.

Do you sometimes drive,
simply drive,
top open or windows down,
casting your demons to the breeze?

Rose drove home.
Oak stepped out, shook himself
as if shedding water or madness,
and without thought of past or future
trotted peaceably into the house.

Joe Cottonwood has repaired hundreds of houses to support his writing habit in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California. His latest book of poetry is Random Saints.

Header image: The dog we named Oak because he matched the floorboards. With my son.