Gently, she swings back and forth — a dog in a birdcage. She is small and brown and angular, lean limbed and wasp-waisted; the birdcage is bamboo with its front removed, suspended from a slim, black pipe in this cluttered, poorly-lit basement. Although the arrangement is peculiar, the little dog seems comfortable, at home. Her continuous, rocking motion is almost hypnotic — but for the jarring scrape of metal on metal, hook slowly scoring pipe, and the fact that natural gas flows through the very pipe the birdcage trembles and grates against…

“Birdcage Dog” — C.Birde, 5/16