Commonplace: Pet Poems

Feat. My Crew of Crazy Cat Ladies & Two Bonus Poems!

P.S.A. (PublicATION Service Announcement):

My poem “April Again” will appear in Issue 32 of No, Dear Magazine later this month! (The theme is ARTIFICE.) In the meantime, check out some of their previous issues here.

Egg Roll in a roll, 9/27/24

Dear Reader,

I made a whole post two weeks ago about how I was going to change my publication schedule, then proceeded to completely forget to post anything on Wednesday. Whoops!

To make up for it, I’m sharing two poems with you today. With crazy (and/or childless) cat ladies re-entering the political discourse—and having read some selections from Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs this week—I’ve been thinking a lot about poems inspired by pets. Last week’s poem “Familiar” was an ode to my foster cat, Egg Roll.¹ She was an unexpected addition to my life (I’ve been taking care of her for about four months) and has only improved it, even though she scratches up my bedspread and wakes me up at five in the morning and is generally very badly behaved.

Familiar

For the past year, I have lived with a crew of crazy cat ladies who regularly foster cats and kittens. (I call them Warriors in the Kitten Crisis.) I always loved hanging out with so many cute kitties, but before I met Egg Roll, I doubted that I was responsible enough to take care of one. All loving relationships require responsibility and care, regardless of the species of those involved. Is affection the same as love? Can you really say you love an animal if you’re not the one responsible for it? These questions and more inspired me to write the following poem last year:

I love you like I love other people’s pets

Like I love my roommates’ kittens 
Who sit with me on the couch, skittish-shy glassy-eye playmates 

Like I love my friend’s old dog  
Who lies with me on the bed, silver-streaked bone-weak companion 

Like I love the neighbor girl’s bunny 
Who dances with me in the yard, jumping-joy lucky-foot friend 

Which is to say: fleetingly 
With enough sense to know you’re better off with someone else 

By Jane McBride

Slow blinks, 10/6/24

I have definitely caught the cat crazies—an incurable condition—but it’s not just cats who inspire my poetry. I grew up with two Labs: Otter, who passed away a while back, and Taxi, who is about as old as a big dog can get. I wrote “Old Dogs” (one of the first poems I ever shared on Loose Baggy Monsters) as a way to pre-process my grief over Taxi’s impending death.²

Old Dogs

Dogs are quite interesting as a metaphor. They are goofy and loving, often all heart and no head, but in the English language they are a symbol of stubbornness, tenacity, and determination. Someone who is single-minded or has tunnel vision is a dog with a bone. To be dogged is to be obstinate, persevering, persistent. To pursue someone relentlessly is to hound them.

I thought about these and other doggy definitions while writing this next poem—pardon my French.

Life’s a Bitch—

The canine kind 
A dog is a girl’s best friend  

 
Life’s an off-leash dog  
Who will not roll over 

She does not know sit or stay 
And she point-blank refuses to beg 


Life Hounds me  

She tracks my scent  
To the waters of despair 

Bites down on me like a chew toy 
And drags me 


back to shore 

by Jane McBride

I don’t remember when exactly I wrote “Life’s a Bitch—” but the vibe reminds me of 2020 and the heart of the COVID crisis. For myself and so many others, life ground to a halt. For some, it never started back up again. For some, life didn’t go on. For me, it did—even when I wasn’t necessarily prepared for it. I was charmed by the image of “life” as a dog that demands your attention whether you are ready to give it or not. Life—and dogs—find away.

Thanks for reading. I’ll write again next Saturday with something scary for election season—ahem, I mean, Halloween.

Until next time,

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1. I was going for a play-on-words here: familiar (adj) as in commonplace, and familiar (n) as in an animal companion, because what’s a more iconic familiar than a black cat?

2. As of this writing, Taxi’s still kicking! Her body doesn’t work great but she’s as chipper as ever.