Hank
Taking in how straitlaced
the dog is (it brings him its leash
to go out; it sticks to his leg
at dog parks), duty demanded
he shake things up: if not
getting it into scuffles or tang,
in the very least—he puts
the blunt’s lit end in his mouth—
blasting smoke up its nose.
“We need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.”—Kafka (against the safe-space cancel culture pushed by anti-art bullies, left and right)