—retracing
trail until
the sun makes
up its mind
to leave
a wilderness
behind—you’ll
never find
the dog
who seems
(in this most
vivid of vivid
dreams) alive
and fresh,
a wish
made flesh,
who left
the leash
and now is
lost—lost
good in the
heart’s deep
wood.
Source: Poetry (July/August 2009).
MORE FROM THIS ISSUE
This poem originally appeared in the July/August 2009 issue of Poetry magazine
Poet Todd Boss grew up on a cattle farm in Wisconsin, and was educated at St. Olaf College and the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he received an MFA. Boss’s pared-down, idea-driven poems are propelled by internal rhyme and balance clarity with a nuanced attention to sound. “I think of poems as pieces of music, or a work of architecture,” he told the Utne Reader in 2009. “The poem is a space that you’re inviting someone . . .
Continue reading this biography