Think of it. A dazzle.
A daze. Or more mundane,
a herd. Six to be precise.
Better that they escape
from a zoo near Zion, but a farm
in Maryland will have to suffice.
If the daze comes into my back yard,
I will close the gate. Name them: Zack,
Ziada, Zane, Zoey, Zabrina, Zander.
The dogs will cower in corners
while the cats will simply move
to cushions under the front porch.
I’ll wait to phone the farm. Keep
my dazzle hidden until they’ve eaten
all the grasses, zinnias and zenobias.
lives and writes in Southern California. In addition to her poetry collection, Forget the Moon, her work has appeared in ONTHEBUS, Spillway, Rattle, Calyx, Cultural Weekly, Crab Creek Review, Lummox, and Inlandia, as well as the anthologies 13 Los Angeles Poets, So Luminous the Wildflowers, and Beyond the Lyric Moment. A recent Pushcart Prize nominee, Patricia is a retired art educator who earned her MFA at California State University, Fullerton.
