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The Dying Animal

By Charlotte Webb

The creek bed is cracked. Jammed

with old car parts and broken stones.

In the morning, mist. The stillborn

dawn runs thick with it.

Curtains drop, the dust falls. The kitchen

clock speaks only in before-and-afters.

Walls licked with soft exhalations. All are

promises etched in the marrow.

Can you live on this? An empty shelf

and mist of breath on glass;

not this (an hour, a day,

a week) not this.

Side by side, hunched over the trembling beast.

—Never again, such tenderness.