Click the arrow on the audio player to hear Dean Young read this poem. You can also download the recording or subscribe to Slate's Poetry Podcast on iTunes.

Saw an upside-down horse in a puddle.
Was a cloud playing a trick.
Saw a petrifying ruckus in the mud
where a devil lay face-down laughing
before being plucked up into the sun.
Such is our salvation: junco feathers
snagged in a rose bush. No need to look
for anything brighter, or darker. What
isn’t storm-pummeled into the dirt, shines.
Yesterday, drove by two workers hugging
in a field of watermelons. Looked like
it must have been a good year although
they probably irrigated like crazy.
I too am sick of instruction, my friend.
I’d say it’s fifty-fifty she’ll come back
and I don’t know the half of it.
You do the math. At the dog food store,
the bat wings look to be the first to sell out.
Apparently it’s not a good year
for fairy princesses, at least as far
as dog costumes go.