The Hounds
       

When anyone came to know us
they would see us killing bottles

of red together on sofas and duvets, and moved
through aisles of produce,
boxes of cereals, walls of red meat.

It is only now that you left I think how
you sent me pictures of
unbelievable strawberries,

seasons of avocadoes,
and hung witch grass from fish hooks,
for luck, above the doorway.

I was pruning ferns and tomato vines
on the balcony while a whole city was sleeping.

In the fields men are pulling traps
for hides to tan and drape
around shoulders and arms. I remember

we stood under a barn fan back east,
and lay beside ourselves in stalls,

begging the question,
what it is we want—

now it is quiet, as the cat turns the banisters
and you are nowhere I can tell
but gone, and walk amongst rooms

with your hounds, I'm told, and look outside
to lawn chairs gathering pollen in Alabama.

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Copyright © 2021 Colby Cotton All rights reserved
from 32 Poems
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission