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
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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.
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