How I arrived at the Kennel is a mystery.

 Perhaps like a lush arrives at the bottle’s end

I was looking for something.

Biscuit, I would name her, for her toasty almost white fur.

One precocious lab stared me down hard,

Watching me with longing, chocolatey warm eyes

She didn’t know my childhood pooch died in my arms.

I preferred the fictitious lives,

whose pages comforted me always, lining my dusty shelves,

Encounters, if too stirring, I could abruptly set down

My friends, Daphne, Saul, Edith and D.H. would never leave me

Cause even when they died, I could see them again,

If I so chose.