-the dog, the rug, the Pope and Benito-

the dog

raised its empty head

and squatting hollow-eyed

in the strain of its circumstance

looked like a meditator

of the spiritual world—  like the Pope at the first

crack of pistol

fire—  like Benito nodding pompously

cross-armed upon his

balcony—  like ditzy Bernadette at the foot

of her burning bush—  like the passive

wildebeest trapped by the jaws clamped at its throat

just before I whacked it on the head

with last month's National Geographic.