STYLES OF GRIEF
(25 June 2002)
It was Miles the black cat's turn
for liver cancer had turned his life
into something nasty and unmanageable.
So we came to him where we'd left him
at the vet's earlier that day
to say goodbye, to witness--
and, alone with him, I played "Dona Nobis Pacem"
(of course for myself) on a tinwhistle,
when all Miles wanted
was to pry the IV lead out of his paw.
The vet whispered something to the cat
while the technician held him,
then hit him with phenobarb so he died at once.
Tears, inevitably. Tears actually
since 2 that afternoon when I got the word.
Now, at 7:15, stroked the cooling fur,
looked into Miles' sightless open golden eyes,
even the vet weeping because Miles,
seven years old, died too young.
Cried-out and back home, my S.O. suggests
I let my other cat smell my hands,
Pushkin at 11 his surrogate mother and best buddy,
for she had to find out,
"Miles is dead" would not cut it,
but would learn all she needed through her nose.
She sniffed my hands for a few seconds,
surely nosed her friend's dead-liver rot,
then screeched and slashed at my forearm,
purity of grief spoken as rage, but not denial,
only pain and hurt suffered in a great draught,
pure, poured out as a bitter drink
that must be consumed at once, not sipped
to prolong the agony,
straight no chaser, no way to drown loss.
KTW/6-15-05
--
Kenneth Wolman
Proposal Development Department
Room SW334
Sarnoff Corporation
609-734-2538
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