Many of the poems that have survived the longest are very short.

Some of them are a couple of thousand years old. They have somehow managed to perfectly catch life in just a few words and we can still feel those long-ago lives within them.

Glenna Luschei, who lives in California, tells us a great deal about comfort in this exemplary poem. Her latest book of poetry is Leaving It All Behind, (Presa Press, 2011).

Home

Dog at my pillow.
Dog at my feet.
My own toothbrush.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2014 by Glenna Luschei, “Home.” Poem reprinted by permission of Glenna Luschei. Introduction copyright 2015 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.