My dog’s final days

I listen to Abby describe the way in which she’ll leave
and I don’t really feel like it’s something I should be concerned about
the way in which she describes how she has so much to do
and how I’m a disappointment

I remember Jackson as a puppy and I think
I’ll always remember him that way
small, brown and so soft

and I constantly talk of him as if he were my son
sweet boy
left behind on that next journey

she came to me when I was edged on the precipice of change
and it’s been so long since then
habit forming

there isn’t really a day I don’t think about you
either one
and how it is that I’m such a bad person

I don’t care enough
or I’m not attentive enough
taking care of all those little details of living
something that’s stretched through since gretchen
maybe always

I really just want to have him under my foot again
that strange sad look
and rest his head on my leg

he always seemed happy to see me
and always wanted me to be there
asleep on my bed
and cradled in my arms

the only one who ever really got me
selfless and devoted
and I wasn’t there


I passed you off
left you to someone else
loving though they were

I wasn’t there at the end
and you were alone
scared and confused
old beyond the years

no familiar smell
no mother or siblings
just, maybe, the thought of me

and my absence.

d mcmanus
10/5/2012
v.1