Narrative Master, Prose Poet

BARKER AND THE RED

Through my kitchen window, I see the driveway barker is sleeping in the red loam. Beside her the winter grass is prickly, freezer burned, and frays in the sun. A red cardinal perched in a bare seedling watches the sleeping barker and floats down to the gray and yellow grass to get at the seeds I flung from the bottom of a bag. The barker peeps to see little red and sees me looking at her with my last warning eyes, and so flops her head like a toss in sleep as if she’s really sleeping. Red is ruffled, hopping and floating, frightened by the flop in the loam. Finally, she’s perched, with one eye watching the eyes in the window and one eye watching the mouth in the loam.