During the wedding featured in the NYT’s January 9 “Vows” column, the groom’s sister read Taylor Mali’s How Falling in Love is Like Owning a Dog.

I am charmed. Even though my own dog has never managed to get the hang of bringing things back. (She will enthusiastically chase after sticks and walnuts and the like, and she has been known to bring possums and turtles into the house, but it’s never the same thing back to the same place. Then again, I’ve been told that’s my own m.o. as well. That can be for a different poem on a different day…)