In my white tights, I watched
Dad cry in our kitchen.
He rested on the sink,
Palms sweating and white-knuckled.
We heard Mikey by the door
Ask dad politely
With a defeated whisper
For a comforting pat,
A silent scratch behind old
Folded skin on his Rottweiler ear.

The home phone, chunky and beige,
Laid face down on the wooden counter
Soaked in saline.
Dad was to take Mikey
To the vet in the evening,
Bring him home, cold and cancerous,
And rub his webbed, iced toes
Between index and ring
In a fleeting moment, one last time.
But he never picked up the phone.
It laid dormant, an incessant hum
In Dad’s brain, radiating to the base of his spine.
Instead we each
Kissed Mikey’s brow,
Smushed his extinguishing face
In our palms,
Turning off the lamps.

Mom took off my untwirled tutu,
Putting unmatching pajamas on me.
We forgot to pray, both pirouetting
Thoughts between our fingers
Of what death is like.

I woke up to French toast
And my answer
Served on a blue plastic plate -
A smudge of tear on the rim.
The phone lay on the counter
Crusted in salt, adjacent
To Mikey’s frayed and rusted collar.