Mirroring the dead white sun,

her muzzle slices

sheets of smog, damp fur

and breath shimmering.

She looks, I think, at me. In spite

of this weather, those pupils,

dilated, glean life

behind my back, where she spies

winter starbursts, tendrils

singeing tawny

orbs, swollen

branches against cold

smoke. Chasing her sensorial

map, I lose the thread

to craters in moribund bark,

then spin into her

sticky whiskers

again. A crack

sounds in the duff as one

capsule splits and

skims across her undark

eye. Mouth agape, neck bent

she lingers as a seed

loosens its muscles

somewhere in the rippling.

Does she recognize

my face

in the dowsing

and the splinters,

and do I recognize

hers?