Another Dog Poem

This one's for a friend of mine whose 14-year-old dog moved on today. I'm afraid I will know that feeling (again) all too soon.

Thieves

We invite them into our homes

and they immediately begin stealing things:

first a little bit of our dignity disappears

as we remove their waste from our floors and carpets,

then our sanity slips away as we make vain attempts

to teach them the rules of living in a house.

They sneak around in plain sight, looking for ways

 to entertain themselves that involve making off

with our shoes, slippers, socks, or chunks of our furniture.

Just about the time we are exasperated and ready to give up on them,

they walk right up to us in broad daylight, tails wagging

as we come through the door, and steal our heart.

“Only for a few years,” they bark as they run,

tossing it in the air like a tennis ball.

“Then we’ll make room for another.”

Only by then we don’t want them to.