—11.5.2025

i gave the dog a treat for coming when i called.
i remembered about a book called punished by rewards.

i felt sorry & warm. she's so cute.
who has the spoons to read anymore?

there is one correct way to train a dog
out of millions of modes of relationship.

a well-trained dog heels at a trace of recognition
from the one who rations the stockpile.

an untamed dog, before its master, trusts its body—on a whim
it will barrel through the thicket, collect ticks, bathe in mud,

it will whine & bark & grumble, jump & lick, reverberate with enlivenment
at its hearts' most fearful desires. it will not always be a good dog.

it will always be true & awestruck & dangerous,
in attunement with survival & need, a wolf with soft edges

& a sharp appetite for landscape beyond any luxury kennel.
i asked the dog about today's news & her tongue in a puddle said:

the winner is water, dirt, breath between gulps, a fiery shock of elect-
ricity through muscle—& the dog bolted, thereby reclaiming,

once & for all, running from the sterile lexicon of campaign spectacle.
a dog in flight, good or bad, spells desire. a dog has no spare desire

to cast toward aesthetic preferences under fascism.
in paradise, the tongue said, lolling, change emerges

from thirst & movement. fluidity is its own medicine.