Original
William Matthews
Loyal
They gave him an overdose
of anesthetic, and its fog
shut down his heart in seconds.
I tried to hold him, but he was
somewhere else. For so much of love
one of the principals is missing,
it’s no wonder we confuse love
with longing. Oh I was thick
with both. I wanted my dog
to live forever and while I was
working on impossibilities
I wanted to live forever, too.
I wanted company and to be alone.
I wanted to know how they trash
a stiff ninety-five-pound dog
and I paid them to do it
and not tell me. What else?
I wanted a letter of apology
delivered by decrepit hand,
by someone shattered for each time
I’d had to eat pure pain. I wanted
to weep, not “like a baby,”
in gulps and breath-stretching
howls, but steadily, like an adult,
according to the fiction
that there is work to be done,
and almost inconsolably.
My Draft: This is more like notes for the piece.
My Dad turned 46 the day lucky died.
I was driving home from Carrollton to babysit Gary and Kassandra so my parents could go out for dinner and a movie.
When turned down Carson Court something immediately felt wrong.
I drove down the driveway and noticed the black trash bag with the red tie below the peachtree.
I couldn't smell the vanilla from my dad's black and mild.
I noticed there was no dog on a chain running beside my car.
I was a little confused, perhaps Lucky was in the basement because the weather was a little cold.
I walked inside with out a hello and walked straight to the basement door and walked down the aged wooden stairs skipping the third to last step because it was loose and ready to fall off.
The lights were off and the basement was silent.
After returning up the stairs I noticed my dad wasn't inside so i walked to the back porch and still couldn't find him until I looked an acre across the road and saw a small figure behind the trees in the dirt.
I walked to the back and my dad was digging.
He was digging fast and frantic... kind of angrily with a sense of hurt.
I asked him what happened and he said one minutes I was looking at her out the window and she was fine.. I turned around and when I looked out the window again she was dead. Lifeless and cold across the concrete with stomps of blood on the ground.. She died suddenly and painfully he cried and continued digging with out looking up. It was his birthday and my heart hurt for him.
He brought the trash bag to the hole in the ground and sat on his knee. He placed the bag over his lap and opened the bag and began to pet her. He apologized to her and cried. He held her in his arm one last time and closed the bag and placed her in the hole and returned the dirt to the ground slightly out of place. And with the final shovel returned he held him self up with the handle and buried his face and cried.
And we walked inside and he tried to go to dinner and a movie and returned with a box of food that he never ate.
Now I have to condense this and go off subject.....
