When Loneliness Knocks–Published in San Diego Poetry Annual 2016-2017

When loneliness knocks
Tashi doesn’t bark
but clicks across the wooden floor
until the warmth of her fur
brushes my hand
the hand that dangles, useless, below the desk

When loneliness knocks
my mind makes up stories:
what-ifs from childhood,
from words not said,
of kindness not returned
Sometimes what-ifs become
stories, poems, times
to dream what-might-have-beens
and try them on for size

When loneliness knocks
I pretend I do hot hear
I tell the empty chair across from me
“Must have been the wind.
Perhaps it will go away
if we make ourselves
very, very small”

© Barbara Huntington