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NORTH WEST WORDS<br />
SPRING / SUMMER <strong>2018</strong> ISSUE 9<br />
Dead Dog<br />
In a unit for the mentally infirm<br />
I offer you my love in the form of a dog<br />
so lifelike you expect its tail to wag<br />
or its soft muzzle to crinkle into smiles.<br />
It’s a collie – a she, a Daisy-dog to give comfort<br />
when your night-walls are soughed by the demented<br />
<strong>and</strong> God has forgotten the numbered password at your door.<br />
I have seen the woman with her baby many times,<br />
its doll head bobbing on her ribs,<br />
the lullaby that sings upon her tongue<br />
a comfort only to the bogus child<br />
immured within those skinned <strong>and</strong> skinny limbs.<br />
She walks the ward oblivious to all but<br />
what contentment comes before<br />
the longer shreds of darkness that will<br />
swallow up her memory whole.<br />
So I tender you my good intent –<br />
this spurious gift I think will link an alien present<br />
with the familiar past but even then,<br />
with all that has been lost to you,<br />
you recognise its falsity.<br />
‘That’s a dead dog,’ you say,<br />
the words raged from that part of you<br />
still holding on <strong>and</strong> holding on.<br />
Lynda Tavakoli<br />
19
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