This journey I am calling quadrupedal
Since over three days it will have four legs,
This scruffy dog I am renaming Wheedle,
For kisses he delivers while he begs.

That dachshund is a desk upon whose back
A halting sonnet I seek to contrive.
The Goodyear grounded under skies of black:
A Giant tethered by the 405.

Of course, sometimes a pithy name reflects
Times that truth fled into cerebral swirls,
So when I saw planes land at LAX,
My brain supplied the phrase “a string of pearls.”

And on such nights I might say poetry
Is saying what the altered mind can see.