Thrush Poetry Journal
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Evan L Nicholls
​

A Standard Guide to Purebred Dogs
 
Pointers were bred to corner game birds while you
cock a gun, position yourself on the crown of a ridge.
Here’s one, her white tail erect and piloting like a boat’s
rudder. Look at her now with a stiff duck jailed between the
piano keys of her mouth. She holds the bird so soft like  here’s
some  last  dignity  for  you,  bird.  But the fowl’s heart burst when
they put beebees into it– scatter calamitous– and now her sympathy
is past recognition. Or maybe I am projecting. But there are plenty of
notes I can make on a dog. Like my early bedroom was styled after dal-
matians, and I never got over it. Like I go into used bookstores to buy dog-
literatures, and all of my stories are canid fictions. Like these are my colors:
biscuit, cream, hare, wheaten, pink and isabella. Dead foliage. Liver. Chocolate.
Mauve.




Evan L Nicholls has work appearing in Passages North, Maudlin House, CHEAP POP and Lost Balloon among others, as well as forthcoming in formercactus. He is from Fauquier County, Virginia. Follow him on Twitter @nicholls_evan or  visit him: evannichollswrites.wordpress.com




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