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Self-Portrait with Pit Bull

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…

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

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!