This 19th-century enamel painting, completed by an unknown artist, is titled, “Springer: A Spaniel Bounding Over a Log to Spring a Snipe on the Left.” Courtesy of the Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
Make me write like a dog
gnawing a bone. Not anger,
but that animation, that knowing
focus and breath. The just as easy
letting go,
down into the dirt,
what I will pick up again later.
A language of champ
and chagrin.
Clacked poetry.
Make me another mouth
jerked around
this broken piece
of life.