Here and there occasional
as navels and avocados dropped
by the path, scarlet cardinals,
puppies, squirrels, and dodo birds pop
on front yards—pressed resin, pressed
tin, all kinds of acrylic from China.
Someone loves them no less
than the animals that stutter,
whine, and yelp through the day,
lost behind locked doors,
like those lunatics who stay
howling in cells. The hours
alone—the kind ones who cruelly love,
the beloved ones, gone,
who we had thought do love—
no crazy barking can atone.
Better to arrange inanimate
images, grow orange trees that strew
uncollected fruit, while yet the vet
by the creek sleeps bundled in blue
tarp.