This poem was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
The Hardest Mercy
by Juanita Smart
The dog
who has stopped yodeling joy
braces her body against today’s grip
of gravity, lowers herself in her familiar
patch of grass, inches at a time.
Bonni. We call her name.
Bonni, you’re such a good, good dog.
Fingers gently smooth her rhubarb-colored fur.
Across the street, the little dogwood tree—
haloed in sunshine,
white petals float like snow,
or an eclipse of gossamer moths—
a quiet shedding of tears.
The blue-jeaned vet kneels beside the dog,
syringe and tourniquet in her hands.
Are you ready? The vet looks up.
Everything you know and love about her
will go first, then her body will follow.
She gently plunges the syringe.
Drugs pass through plastic tubing.
The dog shuts her eyes. Leans back. Settles.
We think she’s going under. Think she’s gone.
Until her head pops up, open-eyed and alert,
as if startled to feel all of life
rise in her again.
Her white muzzle drops—
her lovely face, all polished light.
We rub her fur. Arrange her limbs.
We’ve been wondering
about this moment for days,
and now, we stop wondering.
Beneath dogwood, beneath blue sky—
shower of May blossoms.
Juanita Smart serves as Assistant Poetry editor for River Heron Review. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in About Place Journal, River Heron Review, West Trade Review, Cirque, Northern Appalachia Review, and The Gulf of Maine Field Guide, among others. Her work has twice been nominated for Best of the Net and she won first place in The Fieldguide Poetry Magazine’s inaugural contest for best animal poem. She finds joy in the company of other writers and nature lovers, and drafts her best ideas for poems while exploring local Pennsylvania game lands “off leash” with her galumphing dogs, Eliot and Wilson.
You can purchase The Avenue Journal Issue X: Dogs in paperback at Bookshop.org, or, if you prefer it in digital format, you can download the ebook in .epub format for pay-what-you-can (suggested donation $9) at ko-fi.