IMOGENE’S NOTEBOOK

The Moving Armadillo

A poem

Photo by on

On the second night he came,
a faint dance of
hoofprints in mulch,
snoot holes girdled with dirt,
ravines circling the gladiolas;
and each morning we awoke
to his museum of industry
the whiskered masterworks more
things to be unboxed, considered
and put in their place.

We wondered. A cat? Squirrel?
But then one foggy morning
he turned the corner into our garage —
claws the sound of four pistols
cocking — grub hunting, grunting.

Nine-banded dasypus novemcinctus,
the whip tail behind funnel face,
trundling those armored saddlebags
that signified our shared lives —
the world on our backs, never resting.