Dog-shaped shadows snap around the food bank, worrying hearts and heels, cranking up the fight-or-flight into tight fists, raising bile, and barking up the sharpest anger from where it’s been lying forever with one eye cocked open. When the light of care or opprobrium hits, shadow teeth bite deep, like a cartoon of a yelping postman which, when you tilt it, is the headline from a local paper concerning a baby whose sobbing parents turned away at precisely the wrong moment. Contested lines are scent-marked challenges, stained with dogged conflict, where all tins and packets look the same, each one a reminder that human flesh can pass for veal and that the vegan option is beggars-can’t-be-choosers. Dog tired, it’s a long way from home, and everything will taste of shadows.
Oz Hardwick
Picture Nick Victor