Volume 16:1, Winter 2015
The Sonnet Issue
Autumnal
Accustomed to simple thoughts and seamless here,
our dog twitched, asleep in an autumn chase;
stuck to the floor at the ribs she ran her race,
the hare of dream forever breaking clear.
The autumn evening ticked. Her humans peered.
My father noticed she lacked her wakeful grace,
returned to Gunsmoke, groused of the chills embrace.
My mom lamented the quick leaves that year.
Outdoors the wind raved through the neighborhood.
Still, the moon climbed, the sun having curled behind
the earth, and constellations turned, yet stayed put.
The local galaxies clung, as if they should.
And thus it seemed to me a seamless mind
designed our dog to dream and twitch a foot.
Patric Pepper has published two collections of poetry, a chapbook, Zoned Industrial (Poet to Poet, 2000; 2nd edition, Banty, 2010), and a full length collection, Temporary Apprehensions, which was a 2004 winner of the Washington Writers' Publishing House Poetry Prize (WWPH). From 2008 through 2013, Pepper was President of Washington Writers' Publishing House. He continues to serve WWPH as Production Manager. He is founder and editor with his wife, Mary Ann Larkin, of Pond Road Press, which published Tough Heaven: Poems of Pittsburgh, by Jack Gilbert in 2006. His work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies including Cape Cod Poetry Review, Confrontation, District Lines, Gargoyle, and The Innisfree Poetry Journal. Pepper had a 30-year career as a manufacturing engineer and manager. A native Washingtonian, he lives in Northeast DC and North Truro, MA.