My dog-soul forgets to feed
and starves black,
paces circles for a bed
and with dead weight,
settles

thought and action,
usually smitten with intricacies,
are quietly smothered to nothing

a flat purgatory
scored with white noise, overcast
rendered in a pauper’s palette
on a canvas with no edge

ticks remain untocked
until at some distance
a mechanism is rewound
and a leash jangled
for an ear to lazily lift again