I stranded my poems on storefronts
and on deadend streets in crisscrossed
lanes of the maze I called my city.
They looked to me like three year old boys
lost at the fair in the country heat,
silver ribbons dancing in their eyes
three seconds before the glaciers
break and feed the rivers down their cheeks.
I left them like Norfolk Terriers
kept for adoption at the pound
because the owner was ill and friendless
but hugged his dogs with shaking hands
on arthritic knees, willing them to live.