Leaving / by Brian Kunde

Leaving
by Brian Kunde

She walks away,
looks back once.
No one watches.
Satisfied, her head
turns, tail twitches;
she walks on,
leaving their lives.

The old dog
went to sleep
in the grass;
let the neglected
bowl tell them.
The next day
they found him.

The younger dog
lost his hips,
whimpered for weeks
on his mat
as they fed
and cleaned him,
till they relented.

Her brother vanished—
was never found.
He was young,
and they wondered.
Well they might.
But he went
on his terms.

She is old,
but his way
was, she thinks,
the right way;
the cat way.
On she walks,
leaving her life.

* * * * *

Leaving

from All-Too-Occasional Verses : poems, 1st ed., Dec. 2005.

1st web edition posted 1/17/2006.