My Shadow Is Gone

After Dexter, the house keeps its habits:

the space beneath my desk,
the pause at the bathroom door,
my feet still learning not to step
on the dog who followed them.

For eleven years, he made himself
the small, furry answer
to wherever I was—

a sliver of tongue showing,
dirty again two minutes
after the groomer,
asleep in the flower beds
as if the garden had kept a bed for him.

He barked at thunder
as if the sky had broken in.

He slept with his backside
beside my face—
a warm, gassy act of trust—
once sneezed straight into my open mouth,
then looked at me
as though I had caused it.

Before the children,
there was Dexter:

a puppy beside my partner
in the early days of our life together,
his little head out of a bag
at meetings where I was learning
to keep showing up,
a red cape against the cold.

When our daughter was still
beneath her mother’s skin,
he lay against her stomach,
guarding a life
none of us could touch.

After she arrived,
he kept watch beside her.

When our second son was ill,
even sick himself,
he folded beside him.

Every time we came home—
even after being gone
only a little while—
he became noise:

jumping, barking,
inventing a language
too happy for words.

In the car,
his paws on my lap,
his head out the window,
the world rushing past
with nothing to fear
and nothing to fix.

I called you my shadow
because you followed me everywhere.

Only now do I know:

you were not what followed.
You were what stayed.

Now my shadow is gone.

Still, I leave room at my heels.
Still, I look down in the bathroom.
Still, I open the window—

and the wind comes in
with nowhere to put your ears.