Accustomed to a gaze of surly

pre-conception, she was fighting

centuries of straight-up entrapment

caged in the anvil of a nose hard

as a horse pulled to a cantering stop.

The boughs here knock down

on river stones and her snout

bounds through creek water moving

around a warm bow without

a thought for the terror within.

Even my kids see fear in the fur

and the pyramid crease of her head

can’t say much in defence when history

is one rule away from brute force.

Her stick gets lost, and her face flaps

like a flipper and this day may just be

different as the owner (ever on-guard)

stands from a garden picnic

to say yet again she is good with kids.

I raise a hand to quell the deep set

eyes and that long egg of a mind

and see the blunt joy there below

muscle taut to the point of white.