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 Self-Portrait with a Million Dollars, her sixth book of poems, and three chapbooks, including Deadlifts. She has new work out in The Southern Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, North American Review, as well as in Quartet, Pedestal, and Nelle.

 

Plume: Issue #112 December 2020