Weighing the Dog Explication

At first, the poem seems to be about the simple, common task of weighing a dog.  However, the last stanza expresses its hidden symbolism. Billy Collins ultimately portrays weighing a dog as a failed relationship between the speaker and his partner.  This portrayal is awkward and strange to relate back to a relationship, but that might just be Collins’ intention.  

                I interpret that the speaker is like the dog, for the speaker says “you held me in your arms more than I held you”, mirroring that the dog owner cares more for the dog than the dog does in return. The “shaky blue scale” is what their relationship teetered on, for it is a balance they tried, and ultimately failed, to find.  When he “subtracted [himself] from [the] combination” on the scale, she became lighter, suggesting that he was weighing her down.  This concept of being an unwanted weight is present with literally weighing the dog, for the speaker must hold the dog down in order to get the weight.

                For anyone who has ever had to weigh a large dog, you know it can be an awkward, sometimes frustrating process. The tone of this poem however, does not reflect that. The tone is comprised of regret and sorrow. The last line really reflects this tone; “and now we are both lost in strange and distant neighborhoods”. If we relate this back to the analogy of dogs, it can be viewed as if the two lovers are now astray, for this quote projects the image of two stray dogs. This makes sense for the two lovers no longer have the other to take care of them and they live separately, trying to find a new spouse.