With my dog they called it sleep,
but it was death that came as I held her
with strokes and promises of peace
murmuring through us chest to chest,
her eyes and ears hard and sealed with age.

Only scent remained. Did she smell love?
Betrayal? Did her nose warn of the sudden stab
of the chemical dagger? Did she remember
the hundred harpoons a cornered porcupine launched
when she was a pup or the definite nip
of the woodchuck who stole a piece of snout?

And then her head fell. I killed her.
For sleep brings a different kind of waking.