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Earth, this is Frinkus: now into your keeping
accept him, his few shaggy pounds of leaping
small bones, high treble bark and doting eyes.

He hectors neighbors' hounds eight times his size
and comes to you replete with minor crimes:
author of secret puddles, he sometimes
duns us at meals for dainty bits to eat.

He likes his belly rubbed by papa's feet,
and has a trick of spinning in mid-air
that makes his seem a shuttlecock of hair.

Love's absence is his hell; his only notion
of heaven, love's return. He thinks devotion
a joy that only death can take away.
May half as much be said for us one day.
 

© Rhina P. Espaillat