barking mad in bombed-out Sarajevo
(after seeing the French documentary, ‘A Dog's Life', SBS TV, 24/8/01)

the thin young man
who refused to fight
was resigned to the dragging
and shovelling
- bodies to the stinking pyres
 
and noticed the dogs, staggering,
wild-eyed out of bombed-out buildings,
abandoned pets that couldn't be carried
along with whole lives' possessions
in the mass diaspora.
 
so he rescued them, one by one
and when the population of his squatted home
reached three hundred (each one named
and scrubbed and loved) he began to rise
at three a.m., to stir sludge-brown vats
of doggy dinners, cooked in shifts.
 
he speaks to camera about going home
to ask of the fate of his mother
(nailed to a wall, raped by soldiers)
i never asked for the details.
later, he found her alive, and with sobs
hugged her then bolted, back to his dogs.
 
his days are spent cleaning makeshift
cages of dogshit, cuddling and loving
the hairy bundles, wet tongues licking
his thin, smile-less lips, and eyes,
surprised, taking comfort.