Month: September 2018

Saturday, the dog dislocated her hip.
Today, the vet met two emergencies
waiting at the door. A Chihuahua hit
by a car whimpers in the distance,
then, silent in its crate going home.
My dog shivers beneath the waiting room
bench. I kiss her head, pat her chest.
It’s a simple surgery, carpentry really,
sawing and stitching. Still, she’s eleven,
old in dog years, and her aging hurts.
On the road home, sirens. First one car,
then another, then the ambulance flashing
down the roadway. Each requires me to slow
and pull over. Each delivers a soft blow
to my gut. Someone somewhere is injured.
Friends report their overwhelm with the weight
of the world. The way the body feels
living life, like a sob in the fine lines
of nerve and blood, a crying in the heart.
Everything that lives, dies. (Feel that).
Up the bumpy drive to home, the sun
strikes glass like the hammer of God,
shatters me into a thousand tender pieces.