Four Dogs by Elise Hempel

One was terrified by fireworks,
trembling, hiding behind the TV,
another by thunder – a hundred pounds
in my lap at the first faint crack.
While the third, immune to both
the Fourth of July and spring's turbulence,
would bark at the mailman, this stranger each day,
and every passing car.

This silent new one, the only dog now
in an emptying house, follows me
all day from room to room, attached
by choice to an invisible leash,
this one who doesn't talk or sing
at the whine of a siren, more human somehow
than the others before him, mostly afraid
of being alone.



Elise Hempel's poems have appeared in numerous journals over the years, as well as in Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry. She has three chapbooks, and her full-length collection of poems, Second Rain, was published by Able Muse Press in 2016. She lives in central Illlinois.