words

the dogs,
biting the air at their backs
as they fled from headlights,
looking back at those eyes,
a gaze that covered their world
brilliant and blinding and wide,
those canine tongues that lolled
and panting lungs,
the delicate ribcage shivers
as they narrowly cleared the crossing
that would nearly be their last,
these dogs of ancient trek,
these hounds of laborious tandem.

-S.C. Martinez