Fuller implications

Barking black and tan dog
happy scrapper
not usually given
to deep reflection
about anything
but dinner
her impulse
is to chase skaters
gliding enticingly
across ice
on a frozen lake.

Then considering
for the first time
fuller implications
of friction and
one or two of Newton's
more immutable laws
about inertia and gravity
her jaunty flag
of a tail
dips toward
perplexed surrender
as she scrabbles
in an unbalanced bellyslide
back to the safer shore.

There, problems
of physics forgotten
she runs back and forth
barking madly again
gladly daring
those skaters
to try those slippery tricks
up here on terra firma.