Attempting Marianne Moore

An Attempt at a Marianne Moore style poem. Dedicated to my bloodhound mix, who is protecting us from the evils of construction workers and rabbits during quarantine.

Her ears wake her before the rest of the world
antenna piqued to the tempo of those hard-headed foreigners,
brightly colored, reflective,
busy excused foxes by the magistrate who ordered all others in their dens.

Cloistered at the gates of Hades, my diminished Cerberus turns from her guard,
muzzle grizzled gray like the war-weary soldiers
of her antebellum heritage. 
Ignored in her efforts to monitor those wayward criminals, 

she waits patiently at the foot of the Olympians, 
unmoved by the dangers of unwelcome neighbors burrowed underground. 
Loyal lieutenant, she gives chase to the hunt alone, 
indignant lawman to the cotton-tailed vagrants who lease freely. 

Thwarted, outnumbered, her being wrinkles and droops over itself, exhausted,
aghast at the folly of those wild beasts - 
 her unbridled ancestors who willfully turned in their pelts to join Cassandra in domesticated Elysian.