in some backyard
a father catches two dogs
over a hundred miles
half the country from home
in this truck the sheep skin
leftover from slaughter now blankets
these slumped paws
that palm this row of evergreens
their bare-grey streaks mark a return home
where larches have lost their needles
is it real if i touch it?
this shedding sunset
where the world stops
so wrought-iron bolts
can rope themselves
beneath a cleaner sky
the deciduous trees
once a lush bright yellowing
and look! now they are an etching
the veins of routine
over the last century
a silence that stays enameled to fence
its iron-coil upward, o tender afternoon
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 5.
Kendra Ralston holds an MFA in creative writing from Fairfield University. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gyroscope Review, Metphrastics, Cathexis Northwest Press, and Anthropocene.
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