She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.  Good dog.

Screeching screaming
Flat tire
Halts journey!
Menacing night-
Fangs bared,
Nastily stares
~Crouching~
Stares nastily,
Bared fangs,
Night, menacing!
Journey halts,
Tire flat,
Screaming, screeching.

I said I'll meet you by the water
Just follow the path down the shore.
Follow me across the world,
to a place that's left unexplored.
We'll carve our names into the tallest tree,
reaching up towards the heavens and skies.
We'll count the stars as we leave,
to the other side of the island.
Drag a stick through the sand,
drawing tiny infinities.
and then we will sleep in the trees,
it's safe, trust me.
Look at the skies and watch the clouds roll by,
they were all ours.
We traced constellations with our fingers,
and talked in the language of the stars,
so they smiled back at us and sang us songs to sleep.
There is an island named after us.
A legend of a pariah duo.
Oh, the stories this place will hold.