NORA IN MARCH
BY MICHAEL DONNELLY

We've read this book too long now,
Nora decides, lifts her nose above her body
curled by my feet. The shapes of odor call her out,
from slumber. White-blind old eyes, she jumps.

The tiny pads of her feet go distant down the hall;
she scuttles back, nails tapping on Oakwood
with the urgency of soft typewriters.

Nora pants at the door. I scoop her humming
chest in my hands to bring her down
a step, onto the lawn-sodden and dirty white,
piles like splotches of winter holding on.

March. The sky wet gray. An old Jack Russell
sniffs the turf, trips her blind way in melting banks of snow.