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DYSPLASIAHis weight’s too great for me to heft;his tail flouts the tile’s cooling floor until I brace him. Another heave, a lumbering lurch - the ancient shepherd’s up to totter, skitter, stumble, slip beside me for our final, shambling, evening mile. His wolfish smile’s wise. His eyes, dark as any soldier-saint’s, say he’d give up half his hide to save ungrateful heathen. Of course there is no hope now. He knows what I have guessed: tomorrow we pass sentence. He will get that last gift from the vet, a swift soft ease of breath. Yes, soon. His grizzled muzzle seeks my hand. Delicately. Damp in this brute heat of dog days. Whose days are not numbered, then? Come morning, we will go. We must. Once more, tonight, I’ll take him deep into the meadows where no stone step can trip, or cripple worse, this blessed beast, my best. In kind, cool dusk, in soothing dust, an old friend can lie down. Can wait. I’ll watch. My dog will sleep. From Spikenard; first prize, Alabama State Poetry Award, judged by Peter Meinke Return to Index of Jeannette Barnes poems
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