On the Question of Whether or Not Love is a Dog

Surely we know that love is a wild one, with fur and muscled thighs, claws and teeth. She moves just as quickly as a dog down the dark sidewalk searching for a scent she is keenly tuned to notice -- that nobody else is as keenly tuned to notice. And it is well known that love, when she finds that scent, will not hesitate, but will throw her whole body into it, like the dog rolls and rolls in the grass on whatever it is. She (the dog) wants to cover herself in this scent entirely, wants to lose her own scent in its power, and pants with the joy of such immersion.

I am definitely talking about love, and not about a dog, when I say that she is fierce when threatened but an expert at warm softness when safe. At curling into a round shape and relaxing with a sigh, letting her heaviness sink toward the earth because all is well. At nuzzling closer in the night to her beloved, half-aware of her movements in the darkness but sure that to be close is the direction the compass points.

But what about the violence that can arise out of nowhere? She can be calm for hours, then a stray word and her powerful jaws lash out, and you barely move your fingers in time. Or the day you didn't move in time and she knocked you flat on the ground, breathless, and not entirely sure your spine was alright. They say, sometimes, she eats her own young. They say, sometimes, she goes mad with a lust for blood and cannot stop. And that afterward she looks up from the wreckage with blood on her muzzle, wondering what just happened.

If love is a dog, she enjoys the game of fetch. She never tires of being lured. She enjoys the comfort of home, the nourishment, the warmth. She craves wandering, but most days the edges of the backyard are (truly) adventure enough.

To keep her, remember her simple joys. When fed, her whole body smiles. And never forget the electric joy of a scratched back. Do not underestimate the happiness borne of a long, quiet night in a warm bed, together. She stays for all this magic, this constantly recurring similar set of marvels.

The leash has nothing to do with it.

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Jennifer McCharen writes nonfiction and poetry, including translation. Her video work has appeared on MSNBC, and her writing has appeared in Tiferet, the Tampa Monocle, Elan Magazine, and is forthcoming in the anthology MOTIF-4. She currently serves as Translation Editor for Lunch Ticket, and currently resides in Montgomery, Alabama where she works to fight voter suppression.