Filling time

They wander about like dogs in the park
snapping, snarling and
sniffing under each other's tails
interested only in the next meal
or copulation

For a joke
it was determined that
each one should carry
a box of sentience
awkwardly perched atop
a poorly stacked
tower of bones

Such an afterthought was this
that no one really bothered to consider
whether the box would fit
easily through the cervix
in order to progenate

From time to time
the poor thing is prone
to bouts of melancholy
as it ponders
the rather thoughtless act
of being dropped into the universe
without instructions
or even the briefest
of explanations

Which is why
for want of anything better to do
it spends its time
scratching the earth for food
or stopping to sniff
in the hope of coupling briefly
then curling up somewhere quiet
to contemplate the time it has to fill
as it waits for death