Pearl was a bit of a whore.

We never kept her in a fence

So she had puppies at least once a year.

She was a good mother.

Abandoned in the country, starving,

We found her when I was in third grade.

She knew she was my dog immediately.

God help you if you got mad at me.

A blur of fur and teeth and little-dog roaring

Awaited you halfway to me. No one ever called

Pearl’s bluff because they knew she wasn’t bluffing.

I think I learned loyalty from Pearl.

Her oversized sense of protectiveness

Extended to the house a little, too.

But not much.

We lived on a small rise

At the end of a long driveway.

We would see her asleep on the porch in the sunshine

But when the crunch of tires on gravel reached her ears

She would leap like Wonder Woman off the porch

And race to the far end of the yard,

Barking the whole while,

Careful never to look our way.

She’d bark at the unseen burglar

Then cut and run a different way to

Stop and bark at other phantoms.

The shutting of a car door

Made her look our way, startled,

As if to say, “Oh, you’re back already?

When did you arrive?”

And then she would trot with great pride,

Paws lifted a little too high

Her head swinging back and forth

As if to say, “Aren’t I wonderful?”

“Pearl, you’re wonderful,” I would say

Because she knew her job and I knew mine.

In later years I stepped from the kitchen

Into the garage to see her curled

With a small cat under her foreleg,

It’s head snuggled beneath her chin, friends

Laid down for a nap.

The screen door springs closed with a clap

And Pearl lifts her bleary eyes, “What was that?”

She looks up to see me,

With a cat in her bed.

Standing slowly to her feet

Pearl gives a soft “woof,”

As if to whisper,

“The boss is here.”

The cat, knowing her job, too,

Stands,

Looks at me,

Looks at Pearl,

Then trots out the garage

And around the corner.

Pearl gives me one more look

Then chases the cat

To do her duty.

Later, I walk outside

And see Pearl beside the house

In the soft sunshine

Laid down for a nap

With her friend.

Forty years later

I walk around

another house

500 miles away,

And secretly hope to

See Pearl and the cat

One last time.

– Roy H. Williams