Self-Portrait with Pit Bull
April 9, 2015The dime-store Frisbee lasts one day. Rusty springs like a fox, her teeth pierce plastic. She is still learning to let go. I chop broccoli. Rusty waits for a…
The dime-store Frisbee lasts
one day. Rusty springs
like a fox, her teeth pierce
plastic. She is still learning
to let go.
I chop broccoli.
Rusty waits for a taste,
one ear erect, one flopping.
She lips it from my hand.
After dinner, I cue
slow music. We sway
together, red-brown paws
on my chest.
Sprawled on the couch
next to me, she looks like
God’s seventh day.
Hair dark and thin
on her belly, jowls sagging
in sleep. Her dream-bark
no louder than a whisper.
We are in for the evening.
–Tracy Mishkin (Marion County)
Tracy Mishkin is an MFA student in Creative Writing at Butler University in her hometown of Indianapolis. Her chapbook, I Almost Didn’t Make It to McDonald’s, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2014. She has two poems in Reckless Writing 2013: The Continued Modernization of Poetry and one in Best of Flying Island 2014. She also has a poem forthcoming in The Quotable.
Indiana Humanities is celebrating National Poetry Month by sharing a poem from an Indiana poet every day in April (hand-selected by Indiana Poet Laureate George Kalamaras). Check in daily to see who is featured next!