Carlo, Emily Dickinson’s Dog

Poetry

(1849-1866)

Hills were her companions—
And Sundown—she said—and me—

A presence in her pages—

Watching carefully—

She called me Shaggy Ally
On the blackest upstairs day—
I snapped at flies and worked—she said— To keep the King at bay—

Called back—I promised—

Tried to make her understand—

I’d be the first to greet her
In the other Land—

Randel McCraw Helms is retired from Arizona State University’s English Department. His recent poems have appeared in such places as “Dappled Things,” “Blood & Bourbon,” and “Silkworm.”