stray doggerel

an allegorical sonnet

photo by author.

a dog encountered on a busy street
is rarely an aggressor; you will find
his sociably conditioned canine mind’s
preoccupied with finding things to eat.

he saunters unobtrusively, the feet
of passers-by not worth a sniff — the kind
of dogs to fear are those who pace behind
a gate, suspicious of all those they meet.

a city dog, exposed to something new,
won’t bat an eyelid; on the other hand,
suburban dogs go mad while locked away —

believing that they have a job to do,
obsessed and frenzied, they patrol the land
they think they own, psychotically, all day.