The congregants were mostly dogs, but
a perforated box here, a glass bowl there hinted
at smaller souls.
We arrived at the close of the second hymn. The little black dog
wrapped her leash around my legs
and ate the dew-anointed grass of the wide church lawn.
With the patient priest's approach the spaniel offered
her neglected, itchy back, expecting relief
and receiving something different
altogether. Her stub tail stalled,
her whiskered brows shot aloft
with the strange new love of this Saturday morning.
photograph by Sarah Gilbert
