June (I dug the hole and the dog watched)

I dug the hole and the dog watched

me dig the hole for her.

The light was hot and the dirt was red

in the hole I dug. I’m sure

she didn’t know it was a grave,

and I’m guessing she didn’t know

it was for her, but I know she knew

that she would have to go

and soon. I wonder where she thought

that she would go? We often

ascribe to animals a higher

knowledge, a way to soften

the blow of our own ignorance

perhaps (someone must know!),

but what if they’re just more comfortable

in the dark than us? They throw

everything at survival until

they suddenly don’t survive,

or they slowly don’t survive in Ellie’s

case, but they know their lives

are the one thing they have for sure. And I

suppose that that is knowledge

of the higher variety, a kind

that takes a kind of courage

to live behind. So maybe she did

know the hole was for her.

Maybe she knew how I’d carry her

empty body of fur

that evening, after the vet had left,

shit staining the sheet I’d wrapped

it in, to the hole I’d dug for her,

how her body would be trapped

by the weight of the dirt she used to dig in.

Maybe she knew I’d made

the hole I’d dug for her so deep,

in the stretching evening shade

of an oak, that I’d have to get in the grave

myself to set her down,

that I’d have to lean over her empty body

and arrange it in the ground.

Maybe she knew that even though

she was gone I would arrange

her empty body in the hole

I dug for her in the strange

shape of some final kind of comfort.

And maybe she knew I’d find

I was only comforting myself,

and maybe she didn’t mind.