A bit washed out, bedraggled
with his rattail and wet neck spikes
lumbering skyward into a crosswind

tilting something awful,
all-elbows, defiant
as a plywood-sided trailer listing between lanes,

he sounds his indignant, prehistoric squawk
over the carp roiling in runoff,

their mouths’ rubber rings
singing mute hosannas.

This article appears in October 15 2018.

Austin Segrest teaches poetry at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. His poems have recently appeared in Image, Ecotone, Shenandoah, 32 Poems and elsewhere.