Putting Myself to Sleep

My brown Labrador drops
her wet tennis ball at my feet,
tail wagging like a windshield
wiper on high, but every time
I reach to scratch her ears
she vanishes and I awake
on the couch, staring at
the green ball on the carpet.
The stranded bone in the yard.
The empty bowl in the kitchen.
Tell myself it’s just a dog.
We did the right thing, slam
my fists on the dampened pillows
and bury my body to sleep again.

 

Andrew Hamilton loves turtles. Amongst other trivia, he recently graduated the University of Tennessee with outstanding honors in English. He won the university’s Woodruff, Knickerbocker, and Bain-Swiggett creative writing awards. His work has been accepted for publication by BlazeVOX, Yes, Poetry, and Emerge Literary Journal.