the body is diurnal. or it is supposed to be.

all night he labors to breathe, to vomit, to flip over.

it is impossible to sleep while the lungs fill, while every cavity

of the body is drowning.


i lie beside him on the floor

holding his paw in my own.

the night crawls, some miserable

inchworm, forward.


in the morning, every extremity is cold.

his tongue is grey, folding backward.

and still he struggles. to breathe. to not breathe.


i have no idea how to ease his passage. to lessen the suffering.

panting beside him, i welcome each drop of morphine

the sickening sweetness of it on our tongue.