DOG YEARS

Mary Ann Dimand

Years of snuffling through damp grass
to whiff the warm dense rot, the oaky scent
of wood lice! How the nostrils
move the legs from spicy shrub
to social tree trunk lush
with fellows’ greetings. (Leave
your own—ammoniated fame will fade
yet courtesy endure.)
                                    As the human ear
hears symphonies in wind and wave, as human eyes
track rainbows, so their snouts hearken
to the richnesses of Choir Olfactory. What shapely
mathematics might arise
to harmonize the mind with muzzle!

If I could drop to go all-fours and know
a jungle of perfumes so ripe,
well might I close my eyes in wonder
and, in ardor, roll my life in ectasies of stink.

Mary Ann Dimand was born in Southern Illinois where Union North met Confederate South, and her work is shaped by kinships and conflicts: economics and theology, farming and feminism and history. Dimand holds an MA in economics from Carleton University, an MPhil from Yale University, and an MDiv from Iliff School of Theology. Some of her previous publication credits include: The History of Game Theory Volume I: From the Beginnings to 1945; The Foundations of Game Theory; and Women of Value: Feminist Essays on the History of Women in Economics, among others. Her work is published or forthcoming in A Thin Slice of Anxiety, Agave Magazine, Apricity Magazine, The Birds We Piled Loosely, Bitterzoet Magazine, The Borfski Press, The Broken Plate, Chapter House Journal, The Charles Carter, Cider Press Review, The Ear, El Portal, Euphony Journal, Faultline, FRiGG Magazine, From Sac, Front Porch Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Hollins Critic, The Hungry Chimera, Isacoustic, I-70 Review, Journal of Undiscovered Poets, Literally Stories, The MacGuffin, Mantis, Medicine and Meaning, Misfit Magazine, Mount Hope Magazine, Nixes Mate Review, Oddville Press, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, Pennsylvania English, Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Penumbra, Plainsongs, Platform Review, RAW Journal of the Arts, Redactions: Poetry & Poetics, Sage Cigarettes Magazine, Scarlet Leaf Review, Slab, Sortes, Steam Ticket, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Sweet Tree Review, Thieving Magpie, THINK: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction, and Essays, Tulane Review, Version 9, Visitant Lit, Whimperbang, Word For/Word, and Wrath-Bearing Tree.