Author: M.W.
I’m starting to think Proust was a liar,
because the more I pass by
the places I brought my dog before she died
the further that time gets from me,
and all my childhood does is slip away
like the sticks we’d throw in rivers
and chase downstream.
I can’t hold her anymore, that is the thing.
I can hold the wooden box that holds her ashes.
I can sob as I do it.
I cannot hold her.
No amount of fairy cakes nor hula hoops can bring me back,
I will be dragged bleeding through the briars, to end up nowhere at all.
Knees scraped, and like it was then my hair will be knotty and blonde
yet my dog will still be dead,
the old trees will still be cut down.
The grass will still grow in her racetracks,
And the rain will wear the gravestones down.