Poems by Pamela Moore Dionne


I refer to myself as damp poodle so often that I imagine the scent of wet cur.
My inner genius labels me foolish at every turn. I fight. I am no one's pet cur.

If I am anything, I am she-wolf. I saw that beast reflected in the mirror last night.
My own eyes, glaring black ice, hunted and hungry. No thin dejected cur.

I bring my friend my dissertation, hold it toward him in my left hand. Stekel says left
represents incestuous desires. I pet his little boy, his daughter. Their hair wet ocher.

I see his children often in the waiting room. They leave me weak – revolted by my desire.
His wife gives him a second daughter. Another thing meant not to occur.

Siegfried, my baby son! A violin is playing downstairs, …and if ever your sweetheart…
If ever. Love is simple instinct and death the can tied to the tail of a jet cur.

I think of cyanide sometimes. Fear this endless terra incognita between my friend's lips
and mine. He claims his marriage endures – an unwanted cur.

The Sabines spoke in tongues until the wolf king Romulus conquered them.
I have been captured, concubine to my friend's design, his intellect's cur.