At the Animal Hospital

Upon telling the receptionist my name,
She repeated it to herself with a smile
And an emphatic nod of her blonde head.
“My ex-boyfriend’s name is Ralph,” she remarked,
“And so is his father, and his grandfather.”
When I replied that I, too, am the third
Her red, thickly painted lips smiled again
And her pencil-thin eyebrows rose
As she gave me an exhaustive inventory
Of all the Ralphs she ever knew.
“Well, let’s see,” she enumerated,
“My old friend was a Ralph
But everyone called him Snapper
Because when he was a kid
They found him standing on two smooth stones
Which turned out to be two snapping turtles.
I went to my high school prom with a Ralphie.
Boy, did he look like Ralph Malph, too.
We never let him forget it.
Then there was Moose,
But I’m not sure how he got that name…”
I coughed lightly and looked down.
Seeing my dog’s left eye swollen shut
And drool dribbling from her hanging jowls,
The woman quickly finished registering my dog and me
And asked us to take a seat.

Ralph Hubbell (2004)