silence_breaks

here's a poem.

The Other Room

Right around midsummer: your doctors name is
Mary Beth and she will treat you very well
until she kills you, my dear, my darling, my lovely
puppy: back at home: drooling: all over countertop
where there was a thawing tenderloin, pawing: the sink,
shedding: in the garbage disposal, licking: the faucet dry
and you pause, wriggling over to clamp some old batteries
from the ceramic candy dish in your mouth. No, no, no Nikki!
(bad doggy) Those arent good for you, you could kill yourself,
sweetie. Leaping from the loveseat, Im not quick enough to stop
you and after the swallowing, Dad said that dogs eat batteries
all the time, Shell be fine, just give her a few days and
shell be good as new but when you didnt recover and
(we knew you wouldnt chase the rabbits around the apple tree
no more sneakfooting to the dinner table, snakerolling in the leaves,
no more roughhousing the sparrows, licking the doorknob)
the doctors: who make a living on the dying told us
about the humane thing to do, this is what it all has come to:
the pithing of life, pitching the pig ears from underneath the sink,
throwing your collar in the trunk next to the tire iron,
rubbing the sleepers from your eyes, whispering to you before you trot
into the other room following the Milkbone held in front of you,
think not of rabbits and think not of leaves,
think not of your puppies while you are asleep.