Hyena Print

A print.
Mustard yellow
and maroon hyenas laughing.
She made it for a class.

The mongrels on the page
remind me of that frigid January morning.
Her floor was too cold
for bare feet.
It was not November.
No socks that her mother knitted,
or excitement in her voice
like I had set a bottle rocket off
in her.
No sad eyes trying to look happy.

A replacement
for something
she meant to draw for me
but didn’t.
Never telling me
what she had in mind.

Hope leapt from the page.
That maybe there was something
hidden in the paper.
That maybe they weren’t
laughing at me.
48 hours later,
I was on a train
from Toronto to Albany.
A mess of a man
clutching a piece of paper.

I keep them
leashed on my desk.
Every so often,
I pull them
from their frame.
Run my hands
over the ink
and try to feel
what they were supposed to be.

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