Dear
Gladys
by
Amy Genova
I’m
sorry. Sorry mother named you Gladys.
Sorry
you were so beautiful.
A
Great White Pyrenees standing six feet on hind legs
when
largess of paws draped over my shoulders.
Every
day after school, you watched for me
from
my second story bedroom window.
The
stars of your eyes soaring in their field of snow.
Black
stratus of widow’s peak spanning a forehead,
broad
as a fleet. I am sorry for your pink tongue.
That
you had papers, but not litters of snowballs
wagging
round your feet. Mother fixed that.
I
am sorry stepfather adopted you.
That
we lived in a yard-starved townhouse. I loved
to
bury my hands in your galaxy of fur. Sorry,
your
big heart trembled when stepfather came home.
Mother
named you Gladys.
After
the divorce, they turned you over to a farm.
I’m
glad. But I’m sorry too.
Amy
Genova has been published in a number of journals: The Bad Shoe,
3Elements, R.E.A.L., Spry, etc. She also won the 2015 James Nash
prize. She has strong ties to Indiana, having lived there and raised
her family from 2000-2010. She now lives in Olympia, Washington, with
her husband, dog and garden an hour and a half from her daughter and
granddaughter. “Olympia is a beautiful place of rainbows, mountain,
sea and forests. Also, broken hearts.”