Before You Cut Loose by Simon Armitage

Before You Cut Loose,

                                            put dogs on the list 

of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched 

on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs 

or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars 

have followed their noses to market towns 

and bounced like balls into their owners’ arms. 

I heard one story of a dog that swam 

to the English coast from the Isle of Man, 

and a dog that carried eggs and bacon 

and a morning paper from the village 

surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later, 

bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken, 

newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter. 

A dog might wander the width of the map 

to bury its head in its owner’s lap, 

crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw 

against its own front door. To die at home, 

a dog might walk its four legs to the bone. 

You can take off the tag and the collar 

but a dog wears one coat and one colour. 

A dog got rid of—that’s a dog for life. 

No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night. 

Try looking a dog like that in the eye.