City Dogs

Just

this New York morning

they're everywhere, in parks,

running with the runners

around reservoirs, up & down

windy canyons riverstreets,

trotting with rollerbladers & flipping

with the frisbees & Great Lawn acrobats -

nostrils pumping, ear flaps erect & eyes

rolled back, endlessly sniffing out

the metaphysical possibilities

in the simple walk after dinner

where every tree is an investigation

of the sublime, nothing foul enough

to satisfy their instinct for heresy -

aloof, bemused & ecstatically enthusiastic

mixes of every imaginable kind, fancy over-

fluffed pedigrees prancing toward pedicures,

Saturday afternoon perambulations in Village runs,

or Sunday morning powwows in Central Park, where,

let's face it, you see ordinary hounds so overtrained

in culinary arts they're epicures of the ethereal,

estheticians & fabricators of everything architectonic,

fungivorous purveyors of municipal etiquette so

sophisticated in diplomatic backlicking

they personally appreciate every corroding scent

of every mile of everything exuberant- yes!

they love to feel the city on their paws, that pulsing beat

of refrangibly delicious whines & salutations,

helloes & goodbyes, the subway's plaintive eulogy

to all that's passed & forgotten so deep beneath

our refined relapses, not to mention cacophonous

rattling transformations of subterranean desire,

the recessive circles of time, no, yes,

these munificent beings are never imprisoned

by ideals, never molested by subterfuge or blindsided

by impious dreams of grandeur, instead: they feel

their lives vibrate through their limbs like sonic booms,

constantly inhaling truck-and-bus-and-car fumes

like true citizens of the upper underground, peripatetic

city-dwelling native American sophists nonpareil

they have, so to speak, their nose to the ground,

while we, napkin-users of somewhat discrete inclinations,

with all our inelegant acquisitions, trot happily behind-oh

how I envy them their recherché snouts & self-obsessed

tails

counting millimeters of delight, sniffing at every

passing crotch with nothing to lose

but another slice of humble-pie, here, once again,

I'm following a mixed breed named Benya &

a relentlessly energetic smooth Fox Terrier named Gus

through every deadly sin & various bad humors,

stretched & yanked against all the unnatural restraints of...

call it civilization or the light at the end of salvation

that is this great junglegym of over-reaching

we've somehow imprisoned ourselves within-this city

life,

this maze, this unannealing shout & unfurling spray

of indignity in which each moment is an opportunity

for celebration wherein our tolerance for ecstasy

is tested hourly & apparently only dogs behave

with proper humanity so let's bow our heads

& honor every living thing

Amen!