At the Pound, Boulder

Inside, day and into the night, by the dozens they arrive to be left here, not for dead

but for life.

Wet, so many of them, and scared, all of them, loaded into intake cages with a quick 

anonymous pat.

Every breed, all colors. Corgis, Bichons, pugs, a couple of red setters, a German shepherd, 

so many spotted mongrels. 

Most skittish. Down to the last, each with some version of confusion or baleful terror clouding

their eyes. 

After, shuttled to runs, three, sometimes four put in together, lucky if they know one another,

lucky if unknown teeth 

aren’t used against them. Deafening, the noise they hear, they make, the barking, the whines, 

the mournful howls of the saddest

because none have an understanding of rising water in basements or fish swimming up and out

of storm drains;

a hundred-year flood is not in their reckoning. All they know is their right humans and want them back.

There are no treats here, no soft sweet beds, not even a thin blanket; what they know now is only

this hard cement 

and their night enclosed in chain-link and noise and a rolling fear of whether there will be 

a tomorrow. 

When there is, humans who aren’t theirs come with kind voices and kibble. A few lick one of 

those wrong hands, 

while others cower, huddled as far away as they can get, refusing to eat or drink, snap

at a wrong hand.

But they all pee and shit, because they must, some politely in corners, others just anywhere, 

because here they forget their manners 

or there’s no grass or because they think it’s the end of the world and don’t care. But

they do care,

all of them. All looking for their right humans to come to take them home, and when the waters 

recede many will go home, 

though others will go unclaimed. None of them can know that now, so amidst all the wailing 

they wait, they watch, 

trying to believe in these wrong humans. Overwhelmed as they are by such numbers, the wrong 

humans here are trying. 

One stoops in front of a gate to reach through and scratch a curly head, another holds close a 

shivering puppy, 

while another tells an ancient black Lab she’s sure his people will come for him. They’re doing 

what they can

they tell each other, and none go home. They stay here to clean, to feed, to try to give comfort

where there is so little.