Rescue Dog

Margaret Bradstock 

Guapa takes a flying leap
    over the lunch-table, onto his lap
          a leap of faith, a sure landing.
He’s hers, beyond all doubt,
                                   her safety net,
and she’s his.

His partner’s in Colombia
                              still in lockdown,
they skype when they can. 
Empty months loom ahead
working from home,
                  too cold for surfing now.
Remembering Summer
             the days burnt up like grass.
 
Now there are daily dogwalks
    to fill the hours, training, feeding 
reassuring. Guapa snuggles closer,
                         his feisty champion.

Margaret Bradstock has eight published collections of poetry, including The Pomelo Tree (winner of the Wesley Michel Wright Prize)and Barnacle Rock (winner of the Woollahra Festival Award, 2014). Editor of Antipodes (2011) and Caring for Country (2017), Margaret won the Banjo Paterson Poetry Award in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Her latest collection, from Puncher & Wattmann, is Brief Garden (2019).