Poem Renaissance – Bonnie Proudfoot

Gyroscope Review is celebrating National Poetry Month with a Poem Renaissance, a review of previously published poems looking for new life and new views. Every day through May 20^th, a new poem to fall in love with all over again.

Elegy for Dewey Stone
by Bonnie Proudfoot

Last May, Dewey died from diabetes after
a slide into dementia, not fully, just enough
to lose nouns, verbs, to ache with the loss.
Did I mention his name was not really Dewey?
That once, hitchhiking from Buffalo to Woodstock,
someone named Louie picked him up, and
in the car was another guy named Hughie.
“I’m Dewey,” he said, and then he was. We
rolled joints on album jackets, listened to Santana
and watched cartoons. He sang, “I got a black
magic marker.” Did I mention that once when he
was away, while I was watching his husky, she
darted across the road into an oncoming car.
I held her broken body, watched her blue eyes
go blank. Didn’t Roadrunner take a magic marker
out of his invisible pocket and draw a tunnel
into a mountain? Is that where the dog is?
Are they together, with their shining blue eyes?
Does he still stop on the sidewalk every time
a girl says, “Beautiful dog.” Does he say, “yes,
I know. Her name is Yahweh.” I still listen to Santana.
If I had a black magic marker, I could block out
a portal through time and gravity, someplace between
11:30 and midnight. He called from the hospital.
“It’s fucked up,” Dewey said. “I cry a little every day.”
I never asked whether he forgave me for killing
his dog. I never wanted to hear him say he did.
Did I mention how much we used to laugh?

Note: this poem was previously published (“homed”) on One Art.

Bonnie Proudfoot's fiction, poetry, reviews, and essays have appeared in journals and anthologies. Her writing has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart. Her novel Goshen Road (OU Swallow Press) was the WCONA Book of the Year and long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway. Household Gods a poetry chapbook, was published in 2022 (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions). A full-length poetry collection, Incomer, is forthcoming on Shadelandhouse Modern Press. Bonnie resides in Athens, Ohio.

Don’t forget to read the Spring 2025 Issue, available now, online and in print

Previous Renaissance Poets

April Poets

May Poets