Yesterday I killed him,
I had known for months I could not let him live.
I might have paid someone to end it,
but I knew that after fifteen years of sharing life
the bullet ending his must be my own.
Alone, I dug the grave, grieving,
knowing that until the last he trusted me.
I placed him as he'd been some years ago when lost,
he stayed in place until I came and found him shaking,
belly on the ground,
his legs too sapped of strength to hold him up,
his nose and eyes still holding the point.
I knelt beside him then to sroke his head-
as I had done so much the last few days.
He couldn't feel the tears and sweat that fell with shovelfuls of
earth.
And then a cross-
a cross, I guess, so when I pass that way
I'll breathe his name,
and think of him alive,
and somehow not remember yesterday.