a single siren cuts the night,
thin and strangely ineffectual for its purpose,
until a dog takes up the cry,
shaping calamity into the soul's lament.
Someone calls to her to hush,
but she answers to a greater call
and the command remains unheeded.
Unlike the siren,
overly familiar and safely ignored,
the howl rises in searing cadence,
with an urgency that is chillingly alien,
yet universal,
a penetrating, eerie cry.
Human drama is befriended,
the unseen pain not yet alone.
The night deepens.