On A Moonstruck Gravel Road
The sheep-killing dogs saunter home,
wool scraps in their teeth.
From the den of the moon
ancestral wolves
howl their approval.
The farm boys, asleep in their beds,
live the same wildness under their lids;
every morning they come back
through the whites of their eyes
to do their chores, their hands pausing
to pet the dog, to press
its ears back, over the skull,
to quiet that other world.
Copyright Credit: From A Breathable Light, New Issues Poetry and Prose, 2002, and first published in Sou’wester. Copyright © 2002 by Rodney Torreson and reprinted by permission of the author.
Source: 2002