By TREY MOODY
My grandmother likes to tell me dogs
understand everything you say, they just can’t
say anything back. We’re eating spaghetti
while I visit from far away. My grandmother
just turned ninety-four and tells me dogs
understand everything you say, they just can’t
say anything back. My grandmother does not
have a dog. She heard this on the everlasting
news. Forty years she’s lived alone and never
forgot to take me for a milkshake Fridays
after school. I smile when she tells me dogs
understand everything you say, they just can’t
say anything back, and I say oh, I believe it
with a nod meant to convince anyone eternity
is right here. Approaching a century of love
and loss, my guess is she wants to be heard or,
better, understood. When my grandmother tells me dogs
understand everything you say, they just can’t
say anything back, I understand the only thing
worth returning now is yes, I’m here, keep talking.
Trey Moody is the author of the poetry collections Autoblivion and Thought That Nature. A recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award, he teaches at Creighton University and lives with his daughter in Omaha, Nebraska.
