—an elegy
By T. R. Poulson
I remember Cinnamon, a Malamute cross,
her coat a map of browns and blacks blended
on white, her eyes dark as topsoil tossed
among blooms. She watched weeds surrender
to curves of blades. Her human, a botanist
and she, the help, her nose aquiver in bound-up
roots of bleeding hearts. Never a monotonist,
she heeled like contained lightning, a wound-up
plaything, leave-it endured on walks where cattle
crunched fescue. At home, she hid her flattened
volleyball, milk jugs, and her pink rattle
behind the chairs, among the scraps and satin.
She lured human hands from any other canine
with nudge of nose, her tongue nimble and fine.
__
T. R. Poulson supports her writing habit by delivering for UPS in Woodside, California. Her work has appeared in various publications, including Best New Poets, Gulf Coast, and Booth. She is currently seeking a publisher for her first manuscript, tentatively titled At Starvation Falls. Find her at www.trpoulson.com and on social media as @trpoulson.