That We Be Like Dogs

By Vincent Pozon 

She leaps into the car, her tail
electrified, the window rolled
down so she can poke her head out
savor the town's fragrances
a cornucopia of scents, a rush
she cannot know roaming nearby.

What if parents told children to
poke their heads out of car windows
have their feet find asphalt
nearer homes of the unshod, to prowl
past broken doors, to know the clatter
of empty feeding bowls, to hear
not just the screech of classroom chairs
on vinyl floors and the howl of audiences
in ball games and school dances
but the yip of hopelessness, to smell
the poor’s pains from their breath
and then, rather than going
for good grades, do good instead?