Small Dog Drama
Woke weary from a sleep in which small
dogs experienced
repeated head trauma from falling
off laps onto hard floors
which are not their natural habitat,
not
forgiving dust or grass or sod of
yards.
The problem is thus structural but we
apply
an individual solution, taking
the dogs in their soft carriers to
veterinary services
wherein I was complicit
until the intervention of the coffee,
the bedside
lamp, the reinterpretation of the dogs
as personal
problems internal to, I thought, me
Banana Frog
peeled open a banana
out popped a frog
!
trouble was I’d already
eaten the banana
,
and I’m diagnosed
amphibian intolerant
;
stuff that sucker back into
the housing
—
swallow
hard
Phases
Waxwing moon
exceeds the nest / shrieks
Whining moon
gives up over coffee
I don’t want to talk to you anymore
moon
I’ve heard enough about the pain
in your side
Dawn Macdonald lives in Whitehorse, Yukon where she grew up without electricity or running water. She won the 2025 Canadian First Book Prize for her poetry collection Northerny (University of Alberta Press).