There’s a wonderful dog waiting in the kitchen,
dead, wrapped in barrier cloth like afterbirth,
broken back, severed spinal cord, rear leg peeled like a banana.
You must rest easy or my grief too will be inadequate,
like the hole I will dig, shallower than the times I ignored you,
more trifling than all my petty demands on your passing,
now rendered inalterable beneath this compulsory wait
for a break in the rain, or for better light.