JAN WIEZOREK 

Kennel Cough

The paws of a St. Bernard, as large

as the paperweight on my desk.

Red-faced, she walks for grief

over Thanksgiving Street, rambling

like her big Bernard, saying it like

burning, all lost, all hair and friendly eyes,

icy brown, to kennel cough. I took her to the vet,

and it was only a cough, but can you believe it,

her entire lungs filled with cancer. I don’t see

her anywhere on the street now. We’ve always

had a love for dogs, but I’m afraid of the mess,

the routine, and the constancy of owning a pet.

So, now you know how cruel I can be—and that

was the only sign, kennel cough. She turned

the corner somewhere around here and walked

home—that was going around last fall;

so many dogs had it. All the branches empty.

The hawk weathering from oak to hardest oak

to tallest pine searching for what is not there.  

Jan Wiezorek (he/him) writes from the Harbor Country of rural Michigan and is author of the poetry chapbooks Prayer's Prairie (Michigan Writers Cooperative Press, 2025) and Forests of Woundedness (Seven Kitchens Press, 2026). Visit him at janwiezorek.substack.com.

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