Patricia Clark

August, Hinge
 
How would you describe these pandemic days,
no office to go to any more, no squat
telephone like a toad waiting, no books in rows
and hallways empty, endless summer
with so little variation in the days you almost
lose track, how would you paint these losses?
Man at the park with two white hounds—
he sends them running into bushes, then
they circle, emerge at his whistle, one tone
for each dog, lean things with little color,
one has a black ear, another a brown tip
on its tail, their tags jangle long after they’re gone.

Author: Patricia Clark

Patricia Clark is the author of six volumes of poetry, including Sunday Rising, The Canopy and most recently Self Portrait with a Million Dollars. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Plume, and Slate, among others. She received the 2018 Book of the Year Award from Poetry Society of Virginia for The Canopy. Her new book, her seventh, O Lucky Day is forthcoming in January 2025 from Madville Publishing.

 

Plume: Issue #112 December 2020