by James B. Nicola

I do not have a dog. I jog and say hello to all the dogs along the way.

I was born in a Year of the Dog. That’s according to the Chinese Zodiac.

You’ve seen it on placemats in restaurants no doubt: Year of the Rat, the Cock, and so on. Chinese friends tell me that dogs run wild in China and that hungry people eat them, or ate them, back in the day, like Pigs.

My German friends, and Jewish, tell me how their parents and grandparents had to boil shoe leather when that was the only food, either before the concentration camps or having just escaped.

America of late, what with the rise of fascist sorts who call themselves such names as Patriots and Christians, makes me see dogs and fine shoes cobbled from protein in a strange new light.

When I put my Italian shoes on or go jogging, it is not without some fear today, although from time to time I try my best to mix it with a modicum of hope that dogs might live to an old age, that shoes be worn till worn out, and that we the people and the poets—

Poets first, you say?

You want us to line up?

Take off our shoes?

And belts?

Get on which bus?

Go where?

Why?

And what’s happened to your dog?

James B. Nicola is the author of eight collections of poetry, the latest three being Fires of Heaven: Poems of Faith and Sense, Turns & Twists, and Natural Tendencies. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience: The Practical Actor’s Guide to Live Performance won a Choice award. He has received a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, Storyteller’s People’s Choice award, one Best of the Net, one Rhysling, and eleven Pushcart nominations – for which he feels stunned and grateful. A graduate of Yale University, James hosts the Writers’ Roundtable at his library branch in Manhattan: walk-ins are always welcome.