When I was driving to work the other day, I was behind a vehicle which had a sticker that read “Pit Bull Mom” but I read it as “Pit Bull Moon,” which gave me the first line of the poem. I finished the rest of it as my students drifted in this morning.

A Life

She was born under
a pit bull moon and grew
teeth in her backyard.

When the rains fell,
she rejoiced and ate stones.
Her neighbors clamored

and fussed to each other:
she doesn’t belong here.
she must leave at once.

But she never left, and her
life outstretched them all,
making God smile in his hole.