TOO QUIET

It’s very quiet in here. I can hear a fan running in the bedroom, the gentle hum of the computer, and sometimes a faint whoosh of traffic. This is the kind of quiet that prompts a man to think too much. Which is a problem, because it’s April 8.

On April 8, 2000, the cancer had come back and we had to take our beloved Stella to the vet’s office. The doctor put her to sleep. I am almost 42 years old. I have buried people I loved very much. But that remains, without qualification, the worst day of my life.

I remember as we held her, how she looked up at the fluorescent lights with a kind of joy. She was blind. And I remember when we’d go to the beach, she’d do a little dance with her rear end when her paws hit the sand. These two poems are about those memories.

Yep, the silence is getting way too loud.

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