Challenge: Try 10 x 20 (10 syllable lines, 20 of them)
Epiphany
The dog is fifteen, deaf and somewhat blind. She huffs and pants, has to heave herself up with groans, skitters on our slick floors, slips cat- astrophically with stick legs that don’t bend under dinosaur bulk. Bulbous growths sprout through dulling fur -- she nibbles them raw with yellow teeth. One mile an hour is her new top speed. No matter what she eats, she leaks toxic gas. It hangs over her sprawl in a corrupt halo. I have to wonder if she’s still here or if she’s un- leashed, floating lost dog days, running in her doze through dewy fields, a shiny black arrow of joy, flushing birds, sun glinting from sleek sides. No matter. Wherever she is, she still makes her way back, lit with a love that breaks through cloudy eyes, shivers, rubs itself into us, snorting and wild, pure timeless ecstasy, soul, our unearned redemption.
