So many huskies in the city. What a treat!

The turn of the tail, the blue laser eyes,

intensity and ignorance of paradise.

They belong on the tundra. They live with

slanted cement and fenced saplings,

puddles green with contaminants. So crisp.

Proud of the leash, mushing on instinct,

in the park with yellow hamburger wrappers,

while the hired walker swipes for love on Grinder—

they pass the summer in a pleasant pant.

It is a case in theology. We’ll use the Fall

(though the Cave would give us cover from the sun)

and have a think on man’s mortification.

We’ve been displaced, complacent in the dirt,

poking and piling it for civilisation, walking— 

on treadmills, to our credit, not on leashes—

erect in the delusion that we chose this land.

We rose the city. We saw it was good.

Too long bred to miss our native plot,

but feeling we were made for more than girders,

we pass the summer in a secret mood.

The oceans warm and rise by our devising,

as if we knew—we’ve read the myths—

and welcomed what disaster follows.