Model of a City in Civil War. Adam Day

sits Queen Anne at Hockley Hole, London

      for the dog and bull show.

      A rope is tied ’round the root of the bull’s horns and fastened

      to an iron stake,

      its slobbery gray nose blown full of pepper to enrage it before

      it’s baited. Meanwhile,

      men hold dogs by the ears. Let loose, the goal for the dog is to hold for all

      hell to the bull’s

      snout—the most sensitive spot other than the genitals—“If a bull had balls

      hanging from its face

      they’d be attached to his snout.” Now, either the dog remains

      fixed, or is thrown

      tearing out the flesh it has laid teeth on. The bull, a skeptic in dialogue

      with hope, works

      to slide a horn under the cur’s belly, and throw it, so that a dog’s side

      is often ripped open

      entrails protruding like wet sausage—“Yes, it provides much joy

      for the community,

      and the animals certainly gain a sense of dignity in achievement.”

      •

      Goya’s “Portrait of the Family of Charles IV”: intermarriage preserved

      the family’s wealth

      and the compact features of mongoloids. Deformed by a hunting accident,

      Charles—subsidiary

      to his wife, his mouth full of gravel—spent his power slowly collecting

      watches and wrestling