If you are looking for action, look no

further than the smokestack, blasting acri-
mony, black smoke into greater blackness.
Of course this is a political act.
Why else would they dare you to ignore it?
And if you acquiesce, agree to walk
backwards, away from all things factual,
you’ve signed with your blood the devil’s contract.

Against my advice, my dog continues

to eat whatever shit she can find on
this trail. I mean random stuff and actual
shit. If she doesn’t eat it, she sure sniffs
the hell out of it, and sometimes even
tries to roll in it. Such utter desire
for every bit of this world and quick life.
To sense it all, have it on you, in you. 

Dan Fliegel lives and teaches in Chicagoland. His chapbook, How Music Works On Us, is forthcoming from Main Street Rag in late 2023 or early 2024. Poems are published in Adirondack Review, African American Review, Cold Mountain Review, Free State Review, Jet Fuel, The South Carolina Review, and elsewhere. He is the poetry editor for TriQuarterly.

Published October 15 2023