I was speaking with my parents about their wonderful but odd dog, a rescued disabled black Guatemalan street dog. It led me to remember how they had gone to the adoption center and their soon-to-be dog limped over on three legs and leaned against them. The dog chose them, and she has been a gift in their lives. I was also led to consider the difficulty pet centers sometimes have in adopting black dogs–which, perhaps not coincidentally, are a widely used euphemism for depression. The first use of “black dog” to represent depression was Samuel Johnson, apparently. Now I know this, thanks to the OED. I decided to play with the idea of what you choose to get versus what gets you in terms of depression. There may be a delay in posting the poem, but it should appear, as always, at the link. Here’s “Adoption.”