The dog came
in September.
Yellowish,
he limped to where
I stood
at the end of the driveway.
His underside was stained
dark like wine
where dried blood
caked a gash.
I brought home a book
from the school library–
Dog Dictionary–
later to be jammed in a box
& into the car
to which we would be led
by our shaking mother.
She didn’t say anything,
but I knew we didn’t
live there anymore.
I knew we’d never
see that dog again.
We unpacked the car
in the dark,
sulked up Nana’s stairs
in the moonlight
with our beaten boxes.
Savannah Jackson is a 17 year old senior who has lived in more small Iowa towns than she can count. Two years ago she moved to the real middle of nowhere where she currently lives in a house surrounded by miles of corn. She's learned about life out there and how different rural people are from townies and people in the city. She was nominated as an honorable mention in the Nancy Thorp poetry contest out of Hollins University this year.
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