The living and the dead
A Eulogy to Lost Pets
We didn't speak the rest of the way home
I was thinking of the heft of the body,
The way all stiffness left with life
And a heavy emptiness took the torso
He swayed in our hands, a bag of light bones
The pavement was wet beneath him
Sable black on asphalt
"Turn around," I had said in the car, But what I thought was
They don't sleep in the road with their eyes open.
He was a dead still warm,
And I saw only two things beyond the staring glow of yellow eyes,
Both carnal and unseeing
The sticky exit of life from both ends
And the flash of collar and license as we
Lifted the body from the road.

-For a small black cat on Spring street 12:15AM 7/3/01