who loved me best healed me inside out. 
They nudged my burrowed self from the bed, 

room, house, and past the gate. Howling 
at the sky and scenting for the sea they urged me 

to untether myself from uninspired blues 
and frolic instead toward a wilder range of hues. 

Belly up with glee, they intimated that satisfying 
rolls are best experienced in mud, not brittle hay. 
 
And upright, when tempests reigned 
they taught me to shake downpours (fiercely!) off.  
 
The canniest among them stressed gnawing 
the difference between the finest sense of muzzle 

and vulgar uses of that word. Insisted 
there is more to sniff than trouble, more to tale 

than swag and more to wag than tail, except  
a reprimanding finger and an unkind tongue.

Zoë Blaylock’s work has appeared in La Piccioletta Barca, The Westchester Review, Amsterdam Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, and in other publications. She lives in San Diego.