Lizabeth Kingsley

My Dog

most of the time he’s licking the grimy floor or trying to
dismantle the baseboard heater in search of a piece of his food
he’s sure is back there or parking his tank body under my feet
in the kitchen while I’m cooking I roll my eyes begging him to
go somewhere else so I won’t trip over him or step on his wide
platypus feet that don’t match the rest of him he looks up
at me with his whole back end vigorously waving he’s so solicitous
I can’t help but put my knife down sit next to him on the floor
take his pointy head in my hands and accept his kisses he isn’t
worried about being needy has no interest in becoming self-sufficient
it’s as though his massive heart is oblivious to my exasperation
even keen to receive it I draw him closer hoping his openness will
rub off on me I mean where does he get the gall to be undeterred
no matter my grouchiness to exist without pride or pain to wag
and lick and crawl up the mountain of me asking shamelessly for love

Liz Kingsley’s poetry has appeared in New Ohio Review, The McNeese Review, The Round, Euphony, Exit 13, Tipping the Scales, Cagibi, (M)othering Anthology, and Blended (The Alternative Press). Her fiction has appeared in The William and Mary Review. Her personal essays have been published in New Jersey Family Magazine and the anthology Blended: Writers on the Stepfamily Experience. She has received Pushcart Prize nominations for her poems in 2013, 2019, and 2021. A special education teacher in an elementary school, Liz lives in Westfield, New Jersey with her wife and eight children (five human, two canine, and one feline).