by Ahrend Torrey
Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though.
— A.A. Milne
You won’t see them in your business suit. You won’t see them on your grocery run. You won’t see them on your Sunday morning stroll across the Causeway bridge, like white sailing gulls flapping the sky.
Go north for miles and miles— cross the Hudson Bay. After several long days you’ll reach them in the Arctic.
You’ll spot them on dripping ice. Scrounging like giant strays. Thin and filled with worms. Skin sucked to their bones. Pus settled at the corner of their eyes like dried lemon curd.
Look at the muddy beige one with the skeleton’s face— how it slow-stands on hind legs like a sick hare.
What’s it roaring, you ask. Are we too far to hear? What’s it roaring, roaring— thin breath; hard glare.
Ahrend Torrey enjoys exploring nature in southern Louisiana where he lives with his husband Jonathan, their two rat terriers Dichter and Dova, and Purl their cat. He holds an MA and MFA in creative writing from Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and is the author of “Small Blue Harbor” published by the Poetry Box Select imprint (Portland) in 2019. His poetic influences include Anne Sexton, Cavafy, Etheridge Knight, James Wright, Jane Kenyon, Langston Hughes, Li-Young Lee, Mary Oliver, and Walt Whitman.
Comments