Melissa Ridley Elmes

Lines for a dog unwillingly left behind in a divorce

Did you wonder       when I left            did you wait
and wonder        would I return?          Or did you know
with the unerring wisdom of loss        I was gone
you, too, gone from me as well—
mutual parting, grim acceptance,               disconsolate,
and the sun still rose
I still wished on the moon       and      you howled to it
keening the lack for the both of us.