govern
a canine
meeting,
their paws
all over
instinct’s
greeting,
it’s we
who do
the dancing
there, lest
our restraints
ourselves
ensnare.
Over the head,
between
the legs,
we tangle
with our
rules
& regs
like film
in a projector’s
cogs,
reclaim
the lead,
then blame
the dogs.
Source: Poetry (April 2010).
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This poem originally appeared in the April 2010 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 . . .
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