BY LAWRENCE “MACK” HAll

When a man’s worked all day in signing off

On having any number of his fellow men

Imprisoned, flogged, branded, imprisoned, or chained

He’s happy to come home to his good ol’ dog

The master whistles, his happy dog barks

Man and beast in happy concord meet

Playfully tussling in their mutual love

While the servants cringe and cower in fear

What difference if a man executes his brother

As long as he and his dog have each other?

(The curious idea of Pontius Pilate having a dog to love is in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, p. 311 in the Penguin edition. The paragraph is almost as touching as Senator Vest’s courtroom speech, “Tribute to the Dog.”)