Nothing Broken
I’m running the streets. Snow boots, long winter coat, scarf, a hat and mittens. Glasses. I’m not wearing undergarments.
Normally when I run, I’m in my gear. In my spots. Sometimes with music, being conscious of my body.
This zone here is in traffic and my only goal is to catch my dog Geneva. Cars zoom over snow. The ground is white and she is black.
She’s just come from the vet! Where I brought her this morning! To have x-rays on her leg! Which is hurt! To have that done, she was under sedation! When I picked her up, the vet said nothing’s broken. I’m supposed to leave town tomorrow, bringing the dogs with me, and I want to make sure she’s ok before we do that.
Eight hundred dollars later. At least, unlike yesterday, the temp is above zero.
I usually buckle her into her seat (in case I have to brake hard). But since she’s been sedated, I went easy. Decided to stop at Whole Foods on the way home to pick up stuff for the trip. Opened the door and she escaped me.
It’s the first time she’s done that.
She’s running all over, like a hare. Skiving me. I scream out her name. Geneva! Geneva! It’s like Streetcar. She’s my Stella.
She’s mostly in my sight. Or at least mostly staying close enough. In one parking lot, I sit in the snow, crouch, and act like I’m hurt. Pretend to cry. She gets close, but not close enough. I’m not an actor.
Some people stop to help, then give up. I say, She’s playing games. She might be confused. She’s supposed to be sedated.
A man in his car stalks. In a good way. When I lose her, he points, tells me she went that way.
I find her pooping in someone’s lawn. Finally, I get a hold of her collar.
The man asks if I want a ride to my car.
I say, I think my girl is drunk. I think it’s best I walk her.
So High
I’m finally here. The place where she asked me to spread her ashes. She was in remission then, when she asked me, with her bald head, cap. She planned to live for a long time, she said, and that was her joke, until she fooled us all, killing herself by OD-ing on her pain meds. Here we are. I don’t know where she is, because she’s dead, and I still can’t find her. After she died, I lost hours. Days. Grief is no one’s bathhouse. Not a sticker on a wall. It’s a muzzle. And if you have a house, maybe resort to a lean-to.
I’m in Austria, almost six years later, the last place we vacationed, where she asked me to spread her ashes, if need be. But guess what? I don’t have them. Her husband hoarded them and kept them, had his own plans. He slept with me and then he had his own death.
I see the sky, the grooves, the paths, the trees.
Hello, up there, I say. Hello, down below.
I’m alone with this.
Finally, so high, on the top of her mountain.
Hearing Windows
Fifi looks out to the yard as if she’s never seen a landscape. She shakes. I keep the back door ajar in case she wants to roam.
Today, at least she eats. She drinks water I present from a small container.
She’s a surrender from somewhere in Ohio.
It’s Christmas Eve. Two years before marked a storm in history. People couldn’t get food. Nor medications. Moms gave birth wherever. Plows were stuck. Ambulances were stuck. People died walking to the store. People died shoveling their sidewalks. People froze. I stayed hunkered, heated, hearing windows rattle.
I opt out of decorations. I prefer the jazz of summertime, drawing landscapes of the tropics and the ocean.
I play soundtracks: harp and piano, violin.
Ohio has certain laws. I’m not sure what happened with Fifi. She doesn’t bark. She has a short snout. Her face is a doll.
