Emergency Preparedness, Toto Not Left Behind Poem by Mary Angela Douglas

[to Charles Schulz]

close your eyes and pray to land in Oz
I say to myself on gusty days
when the wind picks up the

plastic patio furniture in the
apartment breezeways and
slams it against the railings

or pray to be somewhere still-
without windows
or in a hobbit hole

root cellar of the long ago
stocked with plenty of jams.
and your best friends.

your freaked out dog
with its floppy ears standing straight up
in a wind tunnel.

mary angela douglas 5 january 2016