It's Still Life

III.
Meanwhile …

she keeps that private promise
between herself and her old dog –
every morning when she walks
into the empty kitchen she’ll say,
Good morning, dog, and glance
over to where it used to sleep in
a soft nest of flocked cotton and
lose swaddled polyester, and when
she finds a bit of chalky white hair
rolling vague and lazy in a corner,
she wonders … is it the dog’s hair
or her own stoney white hair,
because some days she swears
that dog’s still padding behind her,
even though it’s been dead
and fertilising the hellebores
for nearly 5-years now.

Oracle words from Jane. ©Misky 2022 Shared with #amwriting on Twitter. Photo by James Lacy on Unsplash.