Day 9 - 2.4.13

Prompt for: February 4, 2013
Subject or Theme: It's a Dog's Life (animals!)
Word(s) to Include: ice cream
Forbidden Word(s): animal(s), best, favorite(s), friend(ly/s), love(ed/s), loyal
Additional Parameters: Title it or add an author's note to let me know what animal you chose if it's not mentioned within the poem itself. Minimum 20 lines.

Queen of the House

White furball poof of energy who
plays us. We who are here but to serve
her royal majesty. We the
‘open the door and let me out!’ folk,
the ‘open the door and let me back in!’ minions,
the ‘now, where is my treat?’ supplicants,
the ‘pre-sent lap’ soldiers
who leave her to guard and defend
the house and return to fuzzball frenzies.

She, who plays goalie- top hockey draft -
stopping any toy that's kicked her way,
who has us trained to play fetch,
who cleans the last bite off our plates,
(she can count you see and one does not cheat the queen!)
who insists upon the last lick of ice cream,
and has laser eyes, immovable, un-sidetrack-able beam
that keeps our food too hot to eat.

We are wrapped around her little paw.

She will chew her toy off the end of the bed
and look soulfully down as if wondering why
it cannot leap back to join her,
who mothers toys several times a year
and then returns to wanting us to hurl it
across the yard.

Empty nest replacement:
a tiny, white Bichon Frise,
called Bear
who magically can stretch to push us off
either side of the queen-sized bed. Ah.
Queen-sized, of course…her bed.
We are merely the blanket warmers,
the feet to flop across, the head and shoulders
to ride so she can see out the window.

Called variously Rufus T. Hound, Poochley,
PUPpy! (by the littlest grandkids) or Snugglebear,
she noisily defends the house from all comers:
thunder, gun shots, fireworks—
sounding more like rottweiller or viscious pit.
People, however, are greeted with
Wiggly convulsions of wriggling joy—
She is the center of the world
and people come solely to see
and pay homage to her:
the queen of the house!