I - Held

I held the girl
as she held her dog
who, had she been able,
could have looked
eye-level
at the woman in the white coat
who held a plastic syringe
which held the soft, pink poison.

II - Elevation Level

Even though the woman in the white coat told us
as she left the room
to leave the dead dog on the ground
- the remains, she called it -
we did not.
Placing her instead on the examination table
because
somehow
the cold steel of the unadorned table
seemed more dignified
than the hard, bleached tile
of the floor.

III - Almost as if Alive

Curled around her tale as if asleep.
Only a certain, solid stillness showing
that she rather something more than slumbered -
the now-forever-open, gelatined-eyes
removed all doubt.
I placed my hand, ever so delicately,
overtop the elongated, tapered face
and pushed down
hoping to restore some lost dignity
by closing her eyes -
the way they do in movies.
Almost as if alive,
her eyes, thick with death and slime,
opened.
They never show that in the movies.