Dog World

Hope Neyer

We might have lost the film negatives and the memory cards to those early digital cameras,

but you’re always going to be the story behind certain summertime scrapes and the answer to my security questions.

Did I capitalize your name? And which name? And when did the “childhood” before “best friend” end?

I don’t know where you live anymore or what became of your mother.

Your father grew green peppers in the kitchen window in St. Bernard. Your sister comes up sometimes on Facebook.

That old dog and your grandma have to be dead by now, And I saw your bird didn’t make it.

I’m sorry. Do you remember the night we sat in the parking lot for hours?

Do you remember climbing high enough the evergreens shook beneath us? Did they tell you what finally did it?

I’ve forgotten a lot, and in any case I never knew that. A check. A careless word, an email, a series of pins,

an orange pill bottle like some kind of forgiving hourglass amber and empty in the passenger seat.

We’re moving again, I should tell you that. Too often think I see your uncle in grocery stores and metro stations.

When I stayed over I would wake up sometimes in the dark hours of the morning, watching you breathe softly and stretch your arms in sleep.

In the flat glow of an empty fish tank, anything I heard and did not understand

could have been the rabbit kicking her cage or your neighbors leaving for work.