Running With Delilah
Bare December trees break through my body.
Like them, I am shorn of green.
Delilah churns through leaves.
I tug her come ahead and pull her taut:
This leash I love and curse, straight or slack between us.
Delilah leaping, trotting past drives.
Landscape cold and cleansed as an Amish household:
Sky, blue against black branches, waves through us.
What are we running from, Delilah?
Can you see the white feathering your nose, my hair?
You say, We're fierce and biting as the dry air.
And with wet grin and soft jowl,
what you look for without, what we carry within:
the lasting beauty of the unadorned bone.
- Ann Cefola
from Sugaring