{"id":1117,"date":"2018-10-05T11:09:06","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T15:09:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/?page_id=1117"},"modified":"2018-10-31T10:40:19","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T14:40:19","slug":"alanna-bailey","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/alanna-bailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Alanna Bailey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><\/h2>\n<h2><b>Light<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Cosmo and Light. The dogs I was raised with<br \/>\nwere the size of small ponies. All our dogs<\/p>\n<p>found us, all mutts. Cosmo must have had some<br \/>\nCollie; my little fingers tangled in<\/p>\n<p>fistfuls of his yam and honey shag when<br \/>\nI\u2019d try to ride him or attach him to<\/p>\n<p>my tricycle\u2014he would growl and snap,<br \/>\nrefuse to pull it like a horse. Light was<\/p>\n<p>half-wolf. They say wolves are born deaf and blind,<br \/>\nunderground. She found us in the canyon;<\/p>\n<p>serene, circumspect, gentle, followed us<br \/>\nhome. She explained the recent lack of coyotes<\/p>\n<p>bothering the yard, the unfamiliar croon<br \/>\nmy parents had been hearing waft through the hills<\/p>\n<p>at night, the sound ringing like an eerie tinnitus,<br \/>\ntickling the jacaranda into gossip with the eucalyptus,<\/p>\n<p>all the leaves in an efferent bustle around the house\u2026<br \/>\nPeople whispered too, would glance twice at the pair,<\/p>\n<p>their easy saunter, their size next to mine,<br \/>\nLight\u2019s close ears and wild brindle, her ability<\/p>\n<p>to disappear behind us on our evening walks,<br \/>\nonly to emerge and encircle to the front<\/p>\n<p>of my stroller when people were coming up ahead.<br \/>\nFor years, when I woke from naps or bad dreams,<\/p>\n<p>Light would be there waiting for me. She\u2019d let me<br \/>\ngrab the scruff of her neck and run with me<\/p>\n<p>down the long halls to find my parents. When she<br \/>\nwas on her deathbed, Light vanished\u2014 sequestered herself<\/p>\n<p>amid the wood block and canvas heaps of Mom\u2019s studio\u2014<br \/>\nonce found, laying pained, panting on the cement floor,<\/p>\n<p>mom knelt to console her, stroke that wild fur, to thank her.<br \/>\nLight bit her. Clamped her teeth into Mom\u2019s fingers,<br \/>\nsent her reeling for first aid while Light died there quietly.<\/p>\n<p>The next day I started to lose my hearing\u2014slight high-pitched<br \/>\nringing from the deep of my inner ear, a resounding sound,<\/p>\n<p>near choral, like the worlds smallest wolf howling<br \/>\na bawdy falsetto telling me when to stop and when to go.<\/p>\n<h5>Alanna Bailey (Poetry &#8217;17) is a poet and nonfiction writer based out of Los Angeles. She holds her Bachelor&#8217;s from Eugene Lang College, The New School University and her MFA from Boston University. A Native Angelino just returned home she currently ponders on being an early-retired New Yorker, time zones, social justice and a guilty affinity for adjectives and run on sentences. She firmly believes that every person&#8217;s story is their strength, and is worth being told and heard.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Light Cosmo and Light. The dogs I was raised with were the size of small ponies. All our dogs found us, all mutts. Cosmo must have had some Collie; my little fingers tangled in fistfuls of his yam and honey shag when I\u2019d try to ride him or attach him to my tricycle\u2014he would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8422,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":33,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1117"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8422"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1117\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}