The dog of time pitchfork canter laced with mercury after-crave
any semblance to human is speculative, we've unburdened the
mass, the massive body signage, bondage, turf implant
unwiring programs and last resort paradigms
indicated by the spikes in goneness unknowable
flash how it feels to be a terminator
to be livestock replenished
caretaking around the pain
dogs of the animal in motion in deliberation
carrying on over cloud cover
as the twilight descends the animal is secreted
ocean compression and endless body spills
the edges are dissolved
animal highlight
animal awareness
animal forever
the light is diminished
water spills over and the heat is a harbinger
and who is subject to this authority
rescue and an epistemological critique
and cross a proscribed threshold where the forest once was
now an emergency living space


About this poem
"This poem is from a manuscript titled 'Bionic Communality.' Wolves show up as protagonists in an ecological system fraught with pressures. A human-centric world is spun off its axis."
-Brenda Iijima

About Brenda Iijima
Brenda Iijima is the author of "Untimely Death is Driven Out Beyond the Horizon" (1913 Press, 2015). She runs Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs and lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2015 Brenda Iijima. Originally published by the Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate