Who We Choose

 who we choose

But, to be fair, it also spelled promise

And newness in the back yard of our life

As if something callow yet tenacious

Sauntered in green alleys and grew rife.

                                                          Seamus Heaney

                                                          Mint

the puppy, wanting the nuzzle

of love coming from

the huffed and whiskered

muzzle of his mother, comes

again and again to 

the drip of milk his siblings

kick and scratch and lift

him from.  the one festering,

level with his jaw and along

his neck, puncture wound

soon soothed, soon, soon soothed

after the true air is out

of the womb new and kept

free of the hush-dug tombs

of such mongrels, the boy 

comes empty but fore

-front coverage: the rusty mud

from the puddles coming up

like geysers after his parting

tires, the rush to the runt

and the cuddle and hug 

to the stew of his new love

his cooling chest-sweat 

and, hunkering his beauty

in, wool.