Donna Fleischer

Petersen Field

late winter bone stillness of the field. dog’s soft footfall herding gait in figure eights encircling us, ghost-like, chasing shadows as they engulf us; knows no less than we whose footsteps spoon snow parfait crust halted by a clutch of briar on the north side of the workers’ house “in ruin before they left ten years ago,” says this new friend and suddenly we’re in the open field—escaped into late day light and free, for a while, to feel the farm’s passing millennium; the golf course recently finalized that will come of the next. we turn slowly to face each other. staggering greyness of sky surprises with a hem of orange light from behind the far away and darkening hills

the white dog
up the snowy rise
disappears