No Dead Dogs

After Phoebe Bridgers

A rule my professor made
in a writing class. I didn’t disagree.
Think Marley & Me.
Old Yeller. All victims
of a red fern cliché, the hushed
goodbyes against an eardrum.
My professor said it was too
easy, that kind of love, that kind
of grief. Six years later, I cradled
the album Punisher to my ear
on repeat after my mother
placed my dog’s pebble
ashes above our fireplace.
Did you know that Bridgers sings
the same metaphor twice?
A dog offering the broken vase
of a bird between its teeth.
The killer doesn’t understand,
Bridgers croons, but it was me
who couldn’t understand.
How I would accept any bloodied
body my dog coughed
into my clean palm, say thank you,
and open the door to the world
again and again. How a dead dog
poem only becomes
a dead dog poem if the story ends
after the final walk, the eulogy,
the little plot of land.
For the last fifteen seconds
of her album, Bridgers
whisper-screams, and it makes
me think of my old girl breaking
the silence of winter,
my breath carrying
her name in a cloud of heat,
in the dander when she shook her fur,
and maybe Bridgers is saying everything
we want to say about our losses
in the static of her voice,
or maybe she is not saying
anything at all, because sometimes
there is no neat ending,
and still we listen.