paw prints in
beach mud
air thick with thaw
sea a river of fog
old dogs again young
they bound up and
down with new
neighbor’s yellow lab pup
crunching across
old browning snow
____
soggy but solid
two by sixes
twenty four feet worth
lifted from some yard
by high tide theft
carried here
for me to shoulder
and carry up my beach
to dry inside the
shack
ache in my shoulder
plum colored bruise
rising with this memory
how quickly this morning grows
distant in this busy life
Jonas Lamb 