Few poems open by announcing what the speaker refuses to be remembered for, and fewer still choose urine. That blunt, faintly absurd first sentence sets the comic tone of Pamela Hobart Carter's "Yearning," but the joke carries a real question. How does anyone leave a mark on the world, and how long does the mark last? The speaker contrasts herself or himself with a chowchow and a Welsh corgi, dogs who patrol the streets leaving scent signatures. The poem then admits, almost sideways, that the speaker wants something similar: to plant "deeds," "ways," "thinking," and "art" in the hearts of friends.
The humour comes largely from clashing registers. The speaker begins with the clinical, slightly prim word "urine," then slips into the cheerfully childish "pee scents." The dogs' behaviour is described in lofty verbs: they "yearn to soak the earth" and "imbue the foggy air." "Imbue" is the sort of word usually reserved for ideas and emotions, so using it for a dog at a lamppost gives the animals a comic dignity. The breeds help too. "Chowchow and Welsh corgi" is a mouthful of specific, slightly silly sounds, and it keeps the poem in the real neighbourhood rather than in abstraction. The image of dogs that "nose through the streets in search / of smells of dogs gone by" is affectionate and vivid. Here "nose" works as a verb, and the sing-song "smells of dogs" gives the line a plodding, sniffing rhythm.
Formally, the poem is free verse with no end rhyme and no fixed meter. The short lines, mostly five to eight syllables, give it the feel of someone thinking aloud on a walk. Enjambment drives it forward, often breaking lines in awkward places: "In this I differ from / the chowchow," or "recorded for canine / history." The second break is neat, because "canine / history" sets a grand phrase on the line's edge and lets it wobble. Sound does the work rhyme might have done. "Rain / rinses" and "hydrant and trunk" make a washing, hissing run of consonants, while "liquid legacy" in the last line ends the poem on a smooth alliterative flourish.
The structure is a quiet reversal. The poem starts by insisting on difference ("In this I differ from"), but the title, and the word "yearn" in line five, suggest the speaker is closer to the dogs than first admitted. The final movement is one long wish, "If only I could so shed / skin or salt tear," and it never reaches a main clause. The sentence trails off into a list, "my deeds / my ways, my thinking, my art," which grows from actions to character to creative work. Judging by that last item, the speaker may be an artist or writer, though the poem doesn't say so outright. Then comes the dash and a deliberately stiff phrase, "civil equivalent." The politeness is the punchline: humans can't mark territory so bluntly, so we're left with the genteel version, memory in other people's hearts.
What makes the poem worth reading is how much it does with so little. It takes the universal wish to be remembered and deflates it by comparing it to something undignified, which makes the wish easier to admit. The poem also quietly undercuts its own envy. The dogs' records last only "until rain / rinses hydrant and trunk," so their legacy is fragile and needs constant renewal. The speaker's alternatives, a shed bit of skin or a salt tear, are even weaker as marks, and that suggests human legacy is not much sturdier than a puddle. Even so, the ambition is modest. It is not fame the speaker wants but a place in friends' hearts, and that gentle, honest ambition lingers after the laughter fades.