Red-Gold Dog

I shouldn’t say so, but most dogs disgust me.

Like the one who ran after my wheels as I tried
to balance on my first bike, or the
one who dumped
a pile near my mother’s rose bushes.

Their glassy eyes—glued to their owners or vacant—
are rivaled only by their too-pink, too-long
tongues, forever hanging out.

Some are like Steiff toys you could give
a baby, some are beasts who’d gash your face
for power walking.

Guess who picks up their shit?

Lately, I’m adjusting my opinion. Today,
when I walked through town, the afternoon
sun glinted off a red-gold dog trotting
with her human, each paw moving lightly,
like a dancer.

I was enchanted.

From across the street, the dog
seemed to feel the warm beam
of my admiration. Her intent
expression, lean torso tugged
her owner to where I stood.

She sniffed my aura, I stroked her back.
Listening hard as I praised her beauty,
she looked into my face. Her owner
had to drag the dog away.

Seasons Like Frankenstein

Night is stealing afternoon, but brown
and yellow leaves hang on. They no longer know
when to let go.

Snow is a fairy tale we forgot.
Parched trees, weak from insects
winter once wiped away,
crack and fall into the river.

Where is the lamb of spring, where?
Raw March, April and May took
a knife to it. We wind mufflers around
our necks to staunch the blood.

The bikinis of July—don’t look for them!
They’ve run indoors to escape
a furnace. People without air conditioning—
the poor and old—die.

Under an orange moon, witchy storms
flood homes, rot corn and tomatoes
heavy in the fields.
The electric grid stutters.

Jacqueline Coleman-Fried is a poet living in Tuckahoe, NY. Her work has appeared in Sparks of Calliope, The Orchards Poetry Journal, pacificREVIEW, Topical Poetry, Quartet Journal, and soon, Consequence and HerWords magazines.