Woods

It’s just her chin

And mouth poking stoic

From under the pillow

At first light.

What she dreams is

Still hidden.

Primate infants suckling,

Wide spiders cover the ceiling,

Ants swarming in orgies over water,

The light we all secretly know

Is not there.

Morning bucked and seared

And the clouds gloved over

So we took the dogs across the river

To the dry creek bed:

One hound, one ferret-like, one shaped

And sorrow-eyed as a seal.

Stream crossed

Scrabbling up the wash

Wet boots and all

Twisting the ticks out of the soft

Of the dogs’ legs

We found it.

The heavy malamute at the cottage

Didn’t know any better.

The Catahoula does and does.

He can smell all the savage

Hope of the world.

Soft stone or hard.

Squalid disfigured tangle.

He knows better. 

There is more underneath.

Thick tackle of sagebrush;

Singing prattle of water through rocks.

Soda dam.

Everything streaming from the girl’s little heart

Lives out here.

At first I couldn’t see it

Though it swaddled me like fog.

The girl and the dogs found it.

I just followed them in.