I’m using daily prompts associated with Inktober (artists doing ink drawings) to spur poetry this month. The poems flow from the prompts, though it may not be obvious (at all); and sometimes the poems are revisions of earlier poems that came to mind when I mulled the prompt. If there’s a photo in the post, it was chosen after the poem was written. I’m “showing my work” by offering some of the words, phrases, associations that came to me for each prompt. The poems may or may not have anything to do with gardens, gardening, or “nature” as it’s commonly considered. To see all the poems (once they’re written), check the Inktober landing page.

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Today’s prompt: HUSKY.

Some associations: husky voice (semiwhisper), hoarse, gruff, rasping, guttural, Siberian husky dog, husky boy (clothes size), burly, husks of corn (husking, husking bee; chaff, shuck, covering, hull), stocky, rough, stalwart, brawny, sexy

Poem (an older poem reworked):

The Fox

The fox stalks
through meuse
to field
in search
of plump prey,
a warm heart
to beat
in her own ribs,
to hush
the grim need
she fights
tooth
and claw.

Watch her paw
through rough bedding
to find
her food.

Your pelt
tastes of salt
and sweet
scrunched fur,
it sates
her wild urge,
it slakes
her mere thirst.

You are
her prey
and her
last hope.
She feeds
on your deep blood,
licks
your wet flesh free
of loss,
and brings you
whole
to the dark den
where beasts
quake
in their dreams.

©MMWms edited 2019/originally written 2007

Note: Meuse, in the first stanza, is an old word not much in use anymore. It means “a gap through which a wild animal’s track passes.” Usually it’s a prey animal who escapes through this gap. The word is from a Middle French word meaning hiding place, secret place, hole in a hedge. It can also be a human-made tunnel to lure hares, rabbits, and other small mammals into a trap.

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