Vixen & Pup

little could the blanketed savage
strapped in his plastic car seat
know how eons of infant hunger

had edged his wailing cry
plucking our twanging nerves
like the devil's lyre:

his hot despair stampeded us
down a flickering ramp to an oasis
of tables and trees where

she leaned against an oak
the furious life raging on her thighs
and loosened a white strap

making good on all the anxious
promises of birth—while I (useless
happy) draped a towel tent-like over

shoulders mouth and a dimpled fist
calling the trees to witness
how mammals can love

Pearl, Vol. 37 (Spring 2007) 37:71.