PS Cottier

I work the dread so many times
that it’s a kind of sudoku in my head —
rehearsing death like an actor a play.
Hopefully one day she will just not get up,
lie too long in her habitual basket
and avoid that dreaded visit to the vet.
There, liquid death is delivered kindly,
but the syringe is always filled with guilt
alongside yellow pentobarbital.
How can a dog understand that love
might write a prescription for death?
She can’t. She licks my hand, trust
written in the ageing eyes, so cloudy.
Human minds flick through possibility,
feel the knot of loss before death.
But dogs just are. Until they’re not.

PS Cottier

This poem was published in last year’s Grieve anthology, a book made up of entries to a yearly competition organised by the Hunter Writers Centre. The dog who inspired the poem has just died, being put to sleep at home, so I thought I’d republish the poem here. Anyone who has a dog in their life dreads the moment that they die, and believes their dog to be the best in the world. Vale Mango, my much missed Staffie. Fifteen years, and not nearly enough.