letter to chocolate

Poem by Alexandra Weiss

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you would have liked dawson and max a lot
i don't know about deacon, i think he'd be jealous
of your social skills, but he's smart too, so
maybe you would have gotten along
max is big and energetic and dawson is sweet
i guess they all have pieces of you

but none of them are clever enough to steal food for later and hide it
i don't wake up with baguette stuffed into my blanket or
find whole wheat slices in between the couch cushions
and they can all open doors but
none of them know how to sled on the doormat
all the way into the arroyo and back
maybe we didn't give them the example of the toboggan
we're growing up
but i miss standing with caroline
in the front yard in our pink winter coats
barely taller than you

yesterday i saw a photograph of dawson with woody and tucker,
the golden retrievers from down the street
they're gone now, no more pawing at the gate or
pulling towards our house for a
playdate and the cheese they liked

they were your best friends and
i don't remember if you got to say goodbye to them
i didn't get to say goodbye
to tucker this spring, neither
did dawson and his brothers
but mom gave him a big hug
from all of us for what that's worth

she told me that rio en medio burnt last week
remember how you loved to splash where the trail crossed the stream,
running wild and nosing up spray?
she told me someone thought you were a bear,
but i don't remember that, only you darting around the clear, cold water
running over the rocks and the wild raspberries
poking up from the poison ivy
i don't want to picture it ashy and twisted
how you wanted to be alone in the dewy grass
with the canyon sounds, the few city stars,
the pain and the night air
because you knew it would happen tomorrow

i don't want to remember that
i wasn't there for you like i should have been
that i spent your last days hiding in front of the tv
i'm so sorry
i wish i could hug you one more time
scratch behind your fluffy ears
smell your weird, mushroomy breath
i'm so glad i got to be your friend
and that you were my first dog
i love you

About the Writer

Alexandra Weiss is a grad student in Chicago. She loves halloween and hard-to-kill houseplants. Her work has appeared in Plants & Poetry Journal, Wildfire, Another Chicago Magazine and From the Depths, among others.