This episode was originally released on April 12, 2022.

Transcribe

I’m Ada Limón and this is The Slowdown.

There are few things as wholly satisfying as the love of an animal. To be loved by a cat or a dog, to be loved and to offer love back, unconditionally, is one of my favorite things about my life. When Lily Bean came into our lives as a puppy I thought I’d never let a dog sleep in my bed. I set her small bed by my side of my bed and tried to sleep. As soon as I turned off the lights, I heard her soft whine, and felt her little paw trying to reach me, and of course, ever since, she has slept not only in my bed but curled up in my arms every night. We sleep as a team.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling particularly anxious or low or shameful, I just press my head into my dog’s belly and listen to her heart beat. She sleeps so soundly, so entirely and her heart is so steady, it makes me feel fixed. She’s taught me, through our almost eleven years of living together, to not take myself so seriously all the time. About five years ago I realized that when I look at her I immediately smile, and I wondered what would happen if I did that for myself. If I smiled at myself when I looked into the mirror. I do it all the time now and let me tell you, it is life changing.

Today’s poem examines that love we all long for, a sense of belonging, the kindness of touch.

Training
by Diannely Antigua

The puppy won’t stop eating rocks and moss.
Sometimes I pry open her mouth to find

whole splinters of bark on her pink tongue. We try
to train her how to sit, how to stick out

her paw when we ask. When she poops in the house,
we bring it to the yard so she knows where to go

next time. And later, after it’s dried in the sun, after the flies
have had their fill, we scoop it up and throw it in the woods.

Here, the world is perpetual March,
and we love a dog as if that’s the only thing we can do, as if

death cannot touch this slice of New England, the trees
growing a canopy of shade just for us.

Yesterday, we strapped the smallest life jacket
to her furry body, took her swimming for the first time.

We watched her paddle from the shore to the center of the lake,
then back again until she grew tired. And last night

while we argued about things that won’t
matter in a month, he was still petting the puppy’s wet head,

and I cried like I’d never known a kindness
so pure and gentle as that, as a pat on the head

for doing nothing but existing. I wouldn’t
call this jealousy, but there is no word

in my human tongue that seems appropriate.
It’s the feeling of all the stones I swallowed in my youth

growing jagged in my belly. And I scratch
the surface of my skin with any sharp thing

I can find to cut them out.

"Training" by Diannely Antigua. Used by permission of the poet.