(from the NaPoWriMo prompt: write something that involves a story or action that unfolds over an appreciable length of time. Perhaps, as you do, you can focus on imagery, or sound, or emotional content (or all three!))
The doctor explained,
the white one would go
in first before the blue one.
And then he slipped
the white one, the one to
make her sleep, in.
There were children everywhere
squealing, shouting, pointing
at a cage just
at their eye level.
A fuzzy basset thing
Gizmo bouncy
and happy to see
all the screaming kids,
but when I straightened up
I saw two bright eyes
with a white stripe between
them all resting royally
on two white paws.
She lowered her eyes
which said to me,
I know the one below
me is cuter. You can
look away.
Then she was chewing
a hole in the window sill
of our first rental place
when you were finishing
your Master degree and
I was learning how smart
she was.
And then she was running
down East Beach when
we drove to Galveston and
she drank so much salt
water she puked on my
towel for the rest of the day
and I worried she would
get dehydrated from fun.
She spent a night with me
on a lounger on a dock
on Douglas Lake
beneath the aurora borealis
and she learned to love
her grandmother after
she moved to Chicago
and her sister when
we got drunk and thought,
Why not another one?
And our walks got slower
and the white fur around
her nose spread against
the field of her jet black self
and her eyes dulled
and her spleen failed
and the white one
made her so drowsy
she forget to breath.
All that was left was
the blue one that
would not be needed
and three little puffs
of air escaping her
mouth like three soft
gun shots.
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