SUN DOG

A dog

splayed on frozen water

cannot gather himself

into a whole

skating on the ice.

 

Against his belly,

round and pink,

cold licks and chews

and drags a heavy tongue.

 

How it must sting to bark,

to freeze, his only companion:

an arc colored in sky.

Nancy Devine teaches high school English in Grand Forks, North Dakota, where she lives with her husband and their two dogs, Whitey and Yo-yo. She co-directs the Red River Valley Writing Project, a local site of the National Writing Project. Her poems have appeared in online and print literary magazines. Her essays have appeared in Matter, a Colorado-based literary magazine.