July 26, 2017

I tried to hold your paws,
they were smaller,
the same shape. All of us shrink
when we age
but sometimes we shrink early
from within.
I spent years timing the moments for your dinner,
smelling your breath
and calling you off the squirrels
and the spiders.
A split rail fence was your gymnasium. I touched the way the lines across your chest were fuzzy and those on your back were solid, I’m made from the way I hold you in the morning when we look into the dark or the dawn.
The way you lament summer in Portland or wherever we are
Snow. Rain. It’s wet,
it’s all the same.
This year the bush in the corner is too big to see you under.
I can still entice you in with
the sound of silverware, the bottles clanking in the refrigerator door. You come inside with cricket cat chirp and expect everything to be the same,
but the long stare at your food reminds us that it’s not.