Toe the Skunk Snow

Foreground: Fire Hydrant! Wait, stop…where’s the road?

Ah, trees, every picture needs trees: foreground, mid-ground, background!

So, I cheated a lot.  It’s not so very frigid outside anymore! There are quite a few robins out and about too.

I stand on top

of our back steps and breathe the rich air –

a mother skunk with her column of kittens swills

the garbage pail.

She jabs her wedge-head in a cup

of sour cream, drops her ostrich tail

and will not scare.

(from Skunk Hour, by Robert Lowell)