Poem-A-Day: They Romp with Wooly Canines by Patricia Smith

They Romp with Wooly Canines   by Patricia Smith   and spy whole lifetimes on the undersides of leaves. Jazz intrudes, stank clogging that neat procession of lush and flutter. His eyes, siphoned and dimming, demand that he accept ardor as it is presented, with its tear-splashed borders and stilted lists, romance that is only on the agenda because hours do not stop. Bless his sliver of soul. He's nabbed a sizzling matron who grays as we watch, a thick-ankled New England whoop, muscled to suffer his stifling missionary weight. Earth-smudged behind the wheel of her pickup, she hums a tune that rhymes dots of dinner trapped in his beard with twilight. Is it still a collision course if you must lie down to rest? Bless her as she tries on his name for size and plucks hairs from her chin. Bless him as he barrels toward yet another wife who will someday realize, idly, that her only purpose in this dwindling novella of his days is to someday lower his heralded bulk, with little fanfare, into a grave. Copyright © 2013 by Patricia Smith. Used with permission of the author. About this Poem: "Ah. Written after noticing more than one city fella 'discovering' poetry and shedding all things urban to become a Grizzly Adams sort, suddenly prone to long-winded analyses of the seasons and earthy, sun-tinged women who drive shiny pickups, raise wolf-like dogs and bite their nails. They grow old and hopeless together. Love smells like talcum and strained sonnets. If only the 1960s would return. I may or may not know one or both of these people personally." Patricia Smith Poetry by Smith Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah    Poem-A-Day launched in 2006 and features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the Poem-A-Day archive.   Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org. April 30, 2013 Patricia Smith's most recent book of poems is Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah (Coffee House Press, 2012). She is on the faculties of the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and the Low-Residency MFA Program in Creative Writing at Sierra Nevada College. Smith lives in New Jersey. Related Poems Listening to jazz now by Jimmy Santiago Baca Life is Fine by Langston Hughes The Spring Cricket Considers the Question of Negritude by Rita Dove

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