The Last of the Load-ups

A dirge for Not So Famous Amos, 2001-2011

You made the man
who collects your pooh
cry,
seeing the blood,
and so did we,
as did they all as we left you behind.

After the man cried and the evening before we left you behind,
your head owled around your shoulder.
Rolling that imperious shark eye
over me, and then back to your dinner
(all ground and awash in a primordial gravy),
you:
“All right, but this is the last time.”

The next morning
we did our perp walk and there you were,
installed in the usual place.
Your tail swept the floorboards,
but that was all. It was time.

We loaded up,
you making a big boy leap of hope,
the car’s back seat impersonally received your scrambling mass.

Charging into the waiting room
(could there be other canines who thrived on being probed
and stuck and flipped and opened up as much as you?),
you had arrived, your beloved sanctum, your journey replete.

On the crabbed exam floor your head nodded, down with a sigh,
and peace sucked all the oxygen out of the space.
A glassine stillness shivered through us all.

Through my mind’s peripherals,
your blacky boy girth slipped past and lumbered down the corridor.
On to the kennels, to hobnob once more.