at Harvard

and to reinvent myself
i became a dog
not just any dog
but a world-class product
of high quality egg
and slippery sperm
who would head off to Westminster
with my parents
who had
settled in Paris many years ago
when rents were cheap and croissants
plentiful.
i imagined the promised land
and didn't know if i would get there
but i was an instant success
with the ladies of the street;
i was handsome, cultivated, and able to
control my bladder-as long as
my mood was good.
i aspired to live a life
that would be the envy of artist and star dogs,
working like a dog.
i would sniff out a bitch who was beautiful, intelligent,
creative, and fertile;
she had to be a good mother to the pups,
and would recognize my fundamental
soundness and pedigree, entrusting
her fidelity.
i carried no trace of my former life as a homo sapiens,
since my apprenticeship as a dog was very productive and short,
and sweet, too.
i found i
actually liked peeing outside and i did it
in a hard-edged style, three legs in the air;
it would have been out of character to use a toilet.
years later, i became a circus clown, after
having studied architecture at Harvard.
i was the first dog to get accepted there.
ah, it's a dog's life.