Eva Lundsager, Were now like (detail), 2021, oil on canvas
O Hollywood (1)
ELIA KAZAN
A little day light
bruises through the door
and runs its one nail through
the fur
wild on the pit floor.
A pound of fat and fur,
the blood is dog blood
and it fills up
the room.
The room is a small room
and it fills up
the world.
A fight never ends
just one dog is pulled off the other—
Crushed basket of chin
and cheek bone. A tongue
somewhere. Half a face.
Matthew Dickman is currently a Michener Fellow at the University of Texas, received the 2000 C. Hamilton Bailey poetry fellowship from Oregon Literary Arts, and has recently been published in _Tin House, Clackamas Literary Review, Poet Lore, _and Rhino.