Victory lap

prison break, five months out:
warm's finally won, desert gone,
one-hand driving home, windows

down. rays of sun from behind a
cloud, my head, a crown and
the harvest sure now as a weed.

celebrate, let hounds run free, but
in only moments from the yard
there are squeaks, the loudest able

baby alarm. a flashlight found the
nest blown, grass strewn with tiny
leporidae and what they bleed.

as a rain begins, I shuttle ear kits,
nine fur packets one at a time, like
a bitch, to ground cover, also new,

across my neighbor's fence. elbow
in tremors, the contrite older dog
helps me find every doomed one.


Phyllis
"Planets turning two ways at once."