Запоздалый подарок для Бобки (bobka)

The Hermit Meets the Skunk

The hermit's dog skitters home
drunk with it once every fall,
the whites of its eyes marbled
from the spray and its tail tucked
tighter than a clamshell. He contracts
himself to a mouse under the hermit's bed.

The hermit unsticks him with a broom
and ties him outside to a tree.
He is spotteddog, black rampant
on white. And as the hermit scrubs,
the white goes satiny with Lava soap, the black brightens to a bootblack shine.
Next a dose of tomato juice stains
the white like a razor cut under water
and purples the black, and after that
the whole dog bleaches mooncolored
under a drench of cornstarch.
The hermit sniffs him, Skunk
is still plain as a train announcement.

So he is to be washed again, rinsed again, powdered again
until the spots wink out again
under the neutral white.
Inside his mouth, the hermit knows
and knows from what is visible
under the tail, Dog is equally spotted
but in the interior, grey on a pink field.
(Maxine Kumin, from Up country)

Вторая половина стиха мне уж и совсем не нравится, так что перепечатывать дальше не стану, но эта, по-моему, очень для Вас с Банзаем актуальна.