Poem of the Month
Insurance Claim

By Mark Callanan

Published on May 1, 2012

Here’s how it panned out:
the stick of dynamite,
thrown on the pond
to break up ice for trout

was snapped up
by that poor mutt,
remembering git, boy, git
and the swift kick

that came with disobedience.
So they lost their shit
and started shooting,
anything to ward him off.

And he, stick in his gob
like a giant cuban—stupid
fuck—crouched under cover
of their brand new truck.

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His barely recognizable corpse

His barely recognizable corpse had gone through the passage rites of propriety, the grandiloquence of motionlessness.