What are you saving it for
if you can’t give it to the snow nowturning your backyard into a postcard,
or to the dog who can no longer negotiate
the stairs in either direction? She’s heavy
on your aging arms, a good sixty pounds,
she farts every time you pick her up,
squeezing her warm belly close to your chest
for easy lugging; the first time you did it
she squirmed like what the fuck are you up to?
I’m not one of those goddamn lapdogs,
I keep my four on the floor at all times, moron,
but now when it’s time for a meal and for bed
she comes looking for you, clicking her toenails
along the floor, leading you where you have to go.
She stands at attention like a soldier at the bottom of the stairs
or like someone who has already climbed into the cab
and announced her destination. Tomorrow she’ll ride
one last time to the veterinary clinic.
and you’ll sign forms and they’ll fill her veins
with sodium barbital and some frothy white shit
to stop your heart. She’ll collapse in your arms
with the same what the fuck expression she used
when you first picked her up. You’ll put her down.
Meanwhile at home the snow is falling everywhere
on the garden and the trees, on the house and on the cars,
on the crib where you keep the firewood, on the trailer,
and the wellhead, a frothy whiteness erasing
her footprints forever on the frozen grass.
