Seven of eight pups writhe against each other
in a great cardboard box cut to enclose them
with pink blanket and wet towel and maternal warmth,
curled up against one another, noses searching their blind world to nurse.
One is dying. It is the one my mother holds
against her stomach--the one who suckles her fingertip, which she's dipped in water--
the one who moans again, again, again, more raucous than any of them,
though it can no longer even lift its head.
It is this one whom little Jaedon has been watching
for hours with tears in his eyes, speaking earnestly from
his seven-year-old heart for this thing that has lived not even two weeks,
"I would do anything, anything, anything..."
again, again, again. In him still is such hope
it may live, but his cries are an awful din to me.
I cannot cry with him. I cannot even touch
the little animal anymore.