Three short lines, and almost no commentary: the poem simply sets a scene and lets it sit. It's a cold morning with ice on the water. Near a container terminal, at a spot where, as the poem puts it bluntly, "they shit in the river," lies a dead dog. The speaker never says how they feel, and that restraint is what gives the poem its force.
The word "they" is vague and a little accusing. It points to people we never see, who treat the river as a dump. The dog becomes a quiet result of that carelessness, though the poem doesn't say how it died, so we're left to wonder. The title adds to the picture: an industrial place built for moving goods, not for living things.
The mood is bleak and cold, but also matter-of-fact. The crude language and flat tone suggest disgust or weary anger, without any speech-making. The ice makes everything feel hard and still, and the dog is simply there, unremarked and unmourned.