Dog (June)

A dog catches my eye. The dog leaps from its owner’s lead, legs stretched then collected, feet touching the ground forward into a future where Rosanna Parklands is dirt tracks and long grass forever; races a bird or spies another dog or is out of the house at last, unleashed. The dog’s white-and-black markings shift like June clouds as muscles extend and contract, dodge or sprint. Jumps over trees that, cut or fallen, lie where they’ve lain for years in settled woodlands, then curves away, or else I curve, my train window and my eyes leaving the dog chasing behind.