Every Dog Has His Day

My girlfriend and best friend’s dogs are both

dead this winter one after another

in Boston the snowiest winter in history

in Nebraska it’s just Nebraska

both of them thinner somehow their sidekicks removed

both of them plainer, more exposed and lovelier

like the bone under the skin,

the wolf-cry in their throats gone,

and gone the running back and forth over the meadows

the helter-skelter movement of their walk

the half imaginary friend they would talk to by their feet

is now fully imaginary, and I am not a substitute

as 1500 miles from each other they take themselves on walks

as they reach out into the air and pull their hands back

as they ponder the coldness of architecture

as they square off with winter

how fearful and bereft I am seeing them a little

bit gone into this loss, and what a fierce vision it is:

two ones I love and two urns to be scattered.