Mac (a dog)

 

You brown eyed

Photogenic

Shaggy haired and energetic

Border Collie Family pet We were pups when we we first met

Not a cat

Like all the rest

Of our weird family’s stream of pets

Not a cat

Something else

Better manners, 

Weirder smells

Black fur

White patches

Chases ball

Never catches

Kind of stupid

Quickly fooled

No I can’t take you to school

Barks at gloves

Jumps at lights

Ignores burglars

Never bites

Not so good at chasing sticks

One day you took at single bite out of every

individual biscuit in a pack of 48 Weetabix

Hopeful eyes

Dopey face

A massive tongue

You basket case

Off to uni

Me, not you

I love poems

You love poo

Longer hair, though, 

In both cases

Hungry looks on both our faces

Another town becomes my home

I get older

You get old

And when I’m back, you still go mad

Bark to warn mum and dad

But now you can’t jump quite as high

Black fur turning grey and white

Brown eyes glow a little dimmer

As they gaze, with love, at my - my -  dinner

One day I’m back and you’re not there

Well, if you don’t count all the hair

That covers every chair and rug

Enough to make a whole new dog

Perhaps that’s all you really were

A massive ball of fluff and fur 

And when you’d shed enough, you went

And disappeared, nothing left

Just memories and photographs

And now these words, an epitaph

To the maddest hound who ever barked

Your crazy face and dreadful smell
Will live forever  In my heart