what fire tastes like,
once its heart has chilled.
It rides November
like a pack of windy crows,
scattering wider and wider . . .
Where does it settle?
Street corners. Rooms.
Unastonished,
we walk on dead stallions,
wipe hair that held sun
from dusty shelves.
* * * * *
ON A BENCH IN LINCOLN PARK,
I ask the woman in sweatpants
if her dog is friendly,
and we get to talking.
They wouldn't tell her at the shelter
what was done to him,
but when she first brought him home,
he crouched under the bed without eating for three days.
He's a Doberman
with clipped ears, a docked tail,
and such numinous brown eyes
I lay my face against his side,
which is warm with sun.
"These deep simple necessities
by which life renews itself."
We never earn them, do we?
In early spring light,
he lets me hold him
for a long time.
~ Francine Marie Tolf appeared in Elegant Thorn Review back in November. She has a chapbook of poems (Blue-flowered Sundress, Pudding House Press) forthcoming and an essay in the current issue of the online journal, Apple Valley Review.
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