Arizona Poets is a series featuring 20 poets from Arizona in honor of our 60th Anniversary. These poets have all visited the Poetry Center and recordings of those visits are available in our audiovisual archive, Voca. Click here to learn more about our anniversary and here to see the rest of this series. 

Richard Shelton is the author of numerous books of poetry and nonfiction. In 1974 Shelton founded the Creative Writing Workshops at the Arizona State Prison, which has since served as the model for many other prison writing programs. He is an emeritus Regents Professor of English at the University of Arizona and has been associated with the Poetry Center since its founding. 

See more of Shelton's work on Voca.

IF I WERE A DOG

I would trot down this road sniffing

on one side and then the other

peeing a little here and there

wherever I felt the urge

having a good time what the hell

saving some because it’s a long road

 

but since I’m not a dog

I walk straight down the road

trying to get home before dark

 

if I were a dog and I had a master

who beat me I would run away

and go hungry and sniff around

until I found a master who loved me

I could tell by his smell and I

would lick his face so he knew

 

or maybe it would be a woman

I would protect her we could go

everywhere together even down this

dark road and I wouldn’t run from side

to side sniffing I would always

be protecting her and I would stop

to pee only once in awhile

 

sometimes in the afternoon we could

go to the park and she would throw

a stick I would bring it back to her

 

each time I put the stick at her feet

I would say this is my heart

and she would say I will make it fly

but you must bring it back to me

I would always bring it back to her

and to no other if I were a dog

 

“If I Were A Dog” from The Last Person to Hear Your Voice by Richard Shelton, ©2007. All rights are controlled by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15260. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.