"Dog knows when friend will come home"
Waiting for Happiness
by Nomi Stone
Dog knows when friend will come home
because each hour friend’s smell pales,
air paring down the good smell
with its little diamond. It means I miss you
O I miss you, how hard it is to wait
for my happiness, and how good when
it arrives. Here we are in our bodies,
ripe as avocados, softer, brightening
with latencies like a hot, blue core
of electricity: our ankles knotted to our
calves by a thread, womb sparking
with watermelon seeds we swallowed
as children, the heart again badly hurt, trying
and failing. But it is almost five says
the dog. It is almost five.
This poem originally appeared in Tin House, Summer 2018.
Artwork: “The Dumb Typist,” 1919 postcard.
Creative Invitation
Who waits for you?
Who are you waiting for?
With a pencil, draw a picture of the feeling of this waiting. Is it rich, anticipatory, orange? Is it hopeless, drawn out, grey as rubble? Is it purple, is it paddling like a waterbird toward its mate, certain of arrival?
Inside you, what sound or shape does waiting make?
Call out to what or whom you’re waiting for, on the same piece of paper.
