Turning Lives

by Yvette A. Schnoeker-Shorb

Down here dogs change, often
replaced by new ones as owners

age, then disappear. Year to year,
after so many seasons, leaves turn

brown, pages yellow, and some
familiar dog-eared one or two

regulars go missing, check out
for good from this living library,

the town square where everyone
has little pieces of everyone else—

stories, hellos, nods—but nobody
ever seems to know the whole life

until a death compels the rest
of us to add our piece of chatter

to the oral anthology that we
create to complete our grief.