Arthritis paralyzed her hips,
atrophied muscles that once jumped and ran for the ball,
collapsed beneath her.
She lay in the kitchen,
breath heavy and painful,
unable to get up.
So she sat in her own *****,
panting,
a low moan with each exhale,
inaudible to human ears.
She was giving up on life,
slowly bleeding on the inside,
pain she couldn’t tell us about.


The first shot was given
into the scruff of her neck,
viscous pink fluid that made
her eyes grow heavy
and her jaw slack.
And then
gently, automatically,
she reared her head back.

“There she goes.”

Unresponsive,
only breath and a heartbeat.
The second shot,
small but lethal yellow into her ankle.

“Her heart has stopped beating.”

We covered her in a white sheet.
Her body was still.
Hallucinations of the breath beneath it.
We carried her stiffening frame
to where she once incessantly dug as a puppy,
her own grave.
The harsh bumps of her spine brushed my leg
a rigid outline like knuckles on a closed fist.
In her white hammock
we swung her softly into the ground.
She settled 5 feet deep
where she would take her final nap.

And now,
The unconscious tapping of a foot,
her tail wagging.
Dropping a scrap on the ground,
I go to call her name.
Where are you to say good morning, good night?

I lay next to you in our old wooden bed,
it is still early, the sun is just beginning
to peek through the curtains and beams of soft light
filter across our sheets. Your back is to me,
a blanket covers half your naked body,
which rises and falls slowly,
to the beat of sleeping breaths.
I connect the dots across your shoulders,
my finger grazes the smooth freckled skin
and I can see goose bumps rise upon your neck.
I smile, because even after all these years,
even though I know what the dots create,
I can still make your hair rise.

The long tearful wail of a siren,
distant in the static black night,
pierces the thick silence
of dim dirt roads
and misty pastures.
An old dog mistakes the sound
for the cry of his own.
He howls forlornly into the darkness,
only a numb stillness rings back,
an intolerable sound of its own.
He lays a heavy head down
to dream of warm fields of wheat
where he chases the white tail of a rabbit,
until it is finally clenched between his jaws.

There is a moment
between hello and goodbye:
I already miss you.

She came barreling into the room,
riding the back of a burnt out star,
her energy crackled and flickered
like flint against steel.
Blue half moons
where her eyes should have been,
simple constellations marked across her face
like maps of emotions and the truth behind her
lazy smile. Her energy took the breath out of me,
and mingled with my own galaxy,
reaching wave lengths of unknown mathematics.
I wanted to say something,
I wanted to touch her,
lightly, a whisper of skin only our
hearts could translate.
I knew something would soar between us,
sparks or maybe even a shooting star.
But she was gone as soon as she came,
an eon of stars following her out the door,
and I was already ten light years behind,
I knew I would never reach her in this lifetime,

but maybe in the next.

Oh, the power of the bean.
Fragrant brown beetle, crushed
and coaxed into my ***.
Steaming water poured and purified through
and through.

The gurgle of brewed alertness,
A universal aroma wakes the house from sleep.
The morning light lusters,
too bright for weary eyes.
But just a sip! Aroused from hazy after-dreams.
Warmth and life progress
from lips to limbs.
The body is present;
the day has commenced.

Thank you,
my God in a mug.

September began with thunder
a vengeance of repressed rainstorms
pink lightening at dusk splintered
across the western sky
and I stood outside watching
afraid yet unafraid
the booming clouds
so much less yet
so much more
than I