WHEN THE DOGS

When the dogs come by, walking on their hands
so the dog inside can dream of a pack
weaving its molting winter warmth
through patches of pine, of wounds
made of snow, healing beneath
an absence of fat deer, fat elk,
fat forgotten in what remained
of summer before the leaves
all ran to the ends of flimsy branches
and dove into the air, plunging
toward the surface of a ground
unwilling to open like a splash.
Crave company with all the blue-eyed
hunger hunting what is yet to bear its young,
weak and dying things, dead things
lying like a steak upon a plate.