Oh Where Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?

you were driving me to work
on a one-way street
when the radio-people were talking about names..
Easter as a last name
Mary Christmas as a whole
and I thought about one of my families first dogs:
Happy.

A mixed up mutt from a real-live pet shop,
which at 4 seemed amazing.
But sad when Happy got parvo
and died,
weeks later.

That led my brain to think of Gretchen,
really my first memorable dog--a short haired dachsund...
who got snippy with my brother and I
who my parents said "ran away" but in
real-life went to live on a real farm in Kentucky.
Not a "farm" farm...but so far away.

And at 3 or 4,
I took my Fischer-Price plastic record player
playing "Oh Where Oh Where has my little dog (Gretchen) gone"
over
over
over
hoping those tears would bring her back home.

Of course,
they didn't. But I did find out she lived till I was a teenager,
happily on her Kentucky farm.