Sometime in the forties a girl
drew a bulldog in her notebook.
It had a cartoon sort of style
in the line work and most
clearly in its eyes.
This sketch changed hands
over the decades eventually
found by a company contracted
to design mascots for public
schools being constructed
in the city.
The bulldog was always
the most popular selection
so all across the country
there were cheap sweaters,
jackets, and jerseys with
the very same picture,
but with different names
and towns across the world.
Often these schools would
do small assignments asking
what it meant to be a bulldog?
Everyone was always so careful
about their answers in the white
walled windowless classrooms
where the lights all sounded
like they were always on the
verge of exploding.
There are bulldogs everywhere,
carving their names into the infrastructure.
Names that were handed out like they meant
anything more than what was clearly there.
No one’s allowed to care about
how people aren’t important
in the bottom lines of who tells us
what we are.
There is a star
up in the sky tonight, and walking
down below it are the bulldogs
finally one within a name
forgiven by the people
never chosen.
Teleporting Typewriter 