I have pictures like that
We used to take those
With pepper. Hold the salt.
At Christmas
When the new squeaky toys arrive
Sniffing up the camera
Pawing at wrapping paper
Cursing the lack of the thumb
While humans encourage the impossible
But there.
There,
There are no pictures like that.
There
The hairy
Four-legged (sometimes 3)
Gypsies bark their own trail
Hang out in gangs
Lie in the streets
Like well trained beasts
Minus a master
It is a free world
But 'oh to be a dog'
Has a different meaning
A 24 hours' fly away.

Art by Debbie Poon.  Words by Kristin Rotar.

fades to gray

It's not there.
God! Why is it always there?!
The absence of & the light
Mocking- in between
The consciousness.
Where the prism ends.
Fades to gray.
Which one extreme-
Will.
I face away today.
I scratch
You scratch back
The opposite
Curly queued
Beneath fingernails
Gnarled, orderless
Among every lost direction
And unmoving itch
The complications of
A knot in the birch

Art by Nadia Hassler.  Words by Kristin Rotar.