poetry

Big Dogs
by Elise Moser

hay shit and leather get his nose going twitching like a fish out of water

the stalls walls why are these big dogs penned in? he is six months old and only halfway grown all saucer eyes and eager

in the park it's thrilling new sticks to be chewed cold white to roll round but then

the horses pound he's off leash they run him down percussive hooves throw snow snort wild in the reins' close hold his little heart thuds a piston his tongue hangs a rag wrung his breath clouds his vision hot fog

here come the big dogs the big, big dogs

Elise Moser has previously published poems in carte blanche and also in nth position. She has published twenty short stories in anthologies and periodicals, and won the CBC/QWF Short Story Competition twice. She is coeditor, with Claude Lalumière, of Lust for Life: Tales of Sex and Love. Her first novel will be published by Cormorant Books in 2009.