Sonnet For The Put-To-Sleep
By Sean Playfair
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Rolling in Harpurhey, the tracks of a digger in the rain – some say,
the tears of a clown. Each, on site, is the bigger man. Not here –
smoothing the gravel – for money, for family, for bailiffs or beer.
But for the dogs, the fur babies, gone to The Bridge. RIP. Today
the perimeter boasts a fence of raised stakes. Dangling from every one:
any youth, strung up, who may have done it. (“We can't be too careful.
Or standards will plummet.”) Outside, blocking motorways, cars full
of ad hoc heroes. Have swift heart, will travel. Then: like shot from gun,
clouds spit up from the dust. The muster agog, as ghosts of the sixty form:
the dogs'-home staffies. Or crosses. (Not sure.) Human-loving souls, pure.
Another fifty-three-thousand mutt spirits; then fifty-three thousand more
rise to the ashen sky; to the canine angels falling from Heaven, a swarm
of put-to-sleep surplus: a further 53K representing tax year 2010 slash
eleven. They bark: “We were here last week too. Eternity's trash.”
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