Tricia Knoll
After the Swim
When I arrived to look after my young grandsons while their mother grocery shopped, she called inside their six-month-old dog, Cash, who had been swimming in the pond. He was stinky, so she put him in a kennel in the living room. I played Candyland with the boys on the coffee table. After a bit Cash began to bark. Then whine. Then claw at the blanket in his kennel. Then howl. The boys ignored him, so I did too—until he began to pee on his blanket and the urine ran out of the kennel all over the floor, and he kept peeing and peeing. The three of us watched in awe at the capacity of this young dog’s bladder. I said to the boys, “I guess that’s what Cash was trying to tell us.” My five-year-old grandson responded, “Meemaw, we don’t speak dog.”
ice pond
unknowable
how sunfish survive
About the Author
Tricia Knoll is a Vermont poet whose work appears in dozens of journals and nine collections, either full-length or chapbook. She is a contributing editor to the online journal Verse Virtual. triciaknoll.com