And how two weeks
after I left you
on your porch

my mother
said, come home,
she’s declining

faster than
expected so
we’ve chosen

a date. You
took the job
in California.

I was no longer
a girl who
follows.

We cried
in the shower
the night

I told you,
your shoulders
suddenly narrow

as my arms
draped a towel
over your reflection

in the fogged mirror.
I didn’t feel
like a villain.

She was twelve
by our best
estimates,

blind and deaf
and threw up
everything

we fed her.
It felt cruel
to keep something

alive for
the sake of saying
it lived.

The vet agreed
to do
the procedure

on our living
room couch.
Said no one

ever guessed
but she loved
her job, how

the animals
she met were
the spoiled ones,

even in death.
She explained
how the first pill

would send a wave
of euphoria
through the dog’s body

the second would
shut down
her memory center.

I didn’t want
to think about
the third pill,

the precise
moment when,
after slowing,

the heartbeat
stops for good.
I didn’t cry

until I saw
my father cry,
reading aloud

a prayer
for the death
of a pet.

I envied the
animal for how
she didn’t know

what was about
to change.
That afternoon

before I drove
away from you,
we lingered

in your basement
surrounded by piles
of clothes

and kitchenware
you were driving
out west.

I kept saying,
I don’t know
how to do this.

What I meant was
I didn’t realize
this would end

in ceremony,
overt as my
climbing a flight

of stairs.
I never
felt smaller

than when
you asked
about the future,

your tone a child’s
who wouldn’t
get their way.

One of us
had to be
the killer.

Now I wonder
how long we might
have stretched it.

We wrapped
the dog’s body
in a red blanket

because that’s
what she was
then, evidence.