Nelson

Now, a few weeks after,
I still expect your face
at the gate, the wait
you gave every single day
for me to arrive
the time of day when you decided
I should rouse and feed you
the grunt
as you lay your old bones
onto the mat
behind where I write
your fellowship, given freely
from the first moment we met
through the fifteen years
and though time
stole most of you
casting you as a ship
rudderless, windless, oarless, adrift
still you managed enough
and sometimes would dream
the pup you had left
yelp and chase
when you no longer could…

Time’s swift brutality
shocks me still –
how did I get here then, Nelson,
grey-haired, aging
in my sixties and you already
gone these past few weeks?