Peter the corgi wouldn’t rest —

That stumbling block for every guest,

Keen to make plates fly far and wide.

We finally put the beast outside.

Quiet and still, he meditated

Not on the reason he’d been gated,

Not on his character or past,

Not on his future or the blast

Of winter on him now, but only

The wooden slab that kept him lonely:

A monstrous fact at which to stare,

Stranding him here, while love was there.

A goof like me, a brat, a bore,

Doodling across my indoor door,

Can look outside with shameful shock At someone who can’t even knock.