like a fat man’s odd diminutive loafers not

frolicking but scurrying layers of fat his coat

gleams as though wet shines chestnut sable darker

head and muzzle lower into the grass a dark

triangular face like the hog-nosed skunk another delicate

nose and not a snout doesn’t it matter what they’re called I like swine

which are smart and prefer to be clean using their snouts

to push their excrement to the side of the pen

but they have hairy skin not fur his fur

shimmers and ripples he never uproots the mother plant his teeth

I think are blunt squared off like a sheep’s if cornered does he

cower like sheep or bite like a sow with a litter is he ever

attacked he looks to me inedible he shares his acreage

with moles voles ravenous crows someone thought up

the names his other name is botched Algonquin but yes

he burrows beneath the barn where a farmer once

dried cordwood he scuttles there at speech cough laugh

at lawnmower swollen brook high wind he lifts his head

as Gandhi did small tilt to the side or stands erect

like a prairie dog or a circus dog but dogs don’t waddle like Mao

with a tiny tail he seems asexual like Gandhi like Jesus if Jesus

came back would he be vegetarian also pinko freako homo

in Vermont natives scornful of greyhounds from the city

self-appoint themselves woodchucks unkempt hairy macho

who would shoot on sight an actual fatso shy mild marmot radiant

as the hog-nosed skunk in the squirrel trap both cleaner than sheep

fur fluffy like a girl’s maybe he is a she it matters

what we’re called words shape the thought don’t say

rodent and ruin everything

HOG-NOSED SKUNK

because she’s half blind and thus prefers

complete not partial darkness and because

she cannot raise her tail entirely over her back

in order to use her one weapon her one defense

when you come to the squirrel trap from behind

and cover with a blanket the wire box

although my beloved won’t believe it

she just gives up she just gives up

HOUND

since thought is prayer if hard and true I thought that thought

could lead me to compassion for my fellow creatures

insects excluded contrary to the Buddha the wasps

might show a little compassion too I do include

the hound next door it moans all day all night

a loud slow lament a child can make itself sustain

to dramatize its misery this dog was once

the neighbors’ child but now they have an actual child

he’s been cast down to be a dog again chained outdoors heartsick

uncomprehending why can’t he just buck up remember his roots his lot

not more special than any other

sad hound look up

at the fledglings’ wide mouths look over here

at the cat teaching her litter how to hunt all sleek all black