When I am very old, I shall keep
angora rabbits. I will sit by the hour
with a bunny on my lap, fondling
its feathered ears, and stroke the long,
exquisite softness of its hair, harvest
by hand the loosened tufts of silky wool,
collecting it in bags to wind upon
a wooden spindle, twisting it to yam.
My puli will lie beside my chair,
a smiling, friendly, canine mop.
Each week I’ll groom its corded coat,
separate and disentangle,
reshape its many hundred dreadlocks
one by one, arranging careful rows,
restore the ordered flow of ropy hair.
My days will be long and richly slow,
soothed by sensuous sameness.
