Busan

Sandy’s coming up from the bottom of the street,
calling for her dog again — fat graying pit pull
who hardly seems the runaway type, too slow
to be hard to catch, too big to wriggle through
a fence; maybe the gate’s broken or too easy to open?
I’ve never walked down to see although it happens 
once or twice a week that I hear her calling the dog:
“Busan, BUSAN!!” An odd name. Of course
no way to know why she chose it. Maybe given
by a past owner. Maybe she got the dog long ago
in Busan. I look across the street and see the dog
standing behind a car; it stops its slow escape
and turns to look at Sandy lumbering toward 
the top of the hill. Soon the leash will be reattached
and they will turn back to the insecure yard 
at the bottom, where Busan will hang out in the sun
and Sandy will recover from the effort
of getting them home until the next time it happens,
when the chances are good that I’ll be sitting here
still, mystified by Sandy, Busan, and their patterns
that lend themselves to incipient insanity
as they lead you to expect different results;
for instance, right now I’m saying “Busan” 
out loud, tearing up, and thinking
of my dead father, the veteran, yet again.