There was a time I thought I could handle it. We walked the hounds around the neighborhood. They pulled and bayed at any quarry. I asked Daddy for the leash, or he just handed it over. I was supposed to stand still until he took it back, but she started to jerk me down into the ditch and I let loose. The girl-dog tracked scent. Daddy called her Patches because she was pied. She’s the smart one he said. Her bay opened a throat of glass and smoke. Quarry comes from heart to be cleaned.
Jennie Malboeuf is a native of Kentucky. Her poems are found in The Southern Review, Harvard Review, The Gettysburg Review, VQR, Prairie Schooner, FIELD, and Best New Poets. She teaches at Guilford College in North Carolina.
