“Porcupine Dozing” by Greg Pape

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Animal TimeLittle velcro-like seeds of hound’s-tongue
in the soft gray under-fur
and the black-based golden quills
lightly trembling like a clump
of stiff grass and the black eyelids closed
on the black eyes dozing
or playing dead in the grass
beside the refuge trail.

Young dark inside-out pin cushion,
be careful, the dogs are coming,
dragging people on leashes.
Things could get snappy.
Some dad might test his shoe leather
against the stilled bush of your wintry defenses.
Some dad’s dachshund all day pent up
might come grinning, following his nose
right up your rear quills, then,
as to human kindness and animal cuteness,
all bets are off.

Why think now of the Siberian tigers
pacing a small space behind a glass wall
in the vast foyer of a Las Vegas casino?
Or the one with a coat of snow and shadow,
tracked, darted, and loaded in a crate,
its power conscripted to sell tires on television?
Your bundled body in quiet camouflage
needs the right background in which to disappear.

We should lift you with our minds
back into the pine tree and let you sleep.
We should bow to you at a distance
honoring the peculiar earth spirit
you are. We should pet you
with our hands in our pockets.

–Greg Pape,
Animal Time
Accents Publishing

More from Animal Time and Greg Pape:

Greg Pape

Greg Pape is the author of nine books, including Border Crossings, Black Branches, Storm Pattern (University of Pittsburgh Press), Sunflower Facing the Sun, winner of the Edwin Ford Piper Prize (University of Iowa Press), and American Flamingo, winner of a Crab Orchard Open Competition Award (Southern Illinois University Press). His poems have been published widely in such magazines and literary reviews as The Atlantic, Iowa Review, The New Yorker, Northwest Review, and Poetry. He has received the Discovery/The Nation Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Richard Hugo Memorial Poetry Award, and his poems have been featured on NPR and read by Garrison Keillor on The Writers’ Almanac. He teaches at the University of Montana, and in the Brief-residency MFA program at Spalding University. Greg served as Poet Laureate of Montana from 2007 to 2009.

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