Artemis, you rolled onto your side,

a careful stroke behind your ear

and your head tilts to the side.

Something in your expression 

reminds me that love is endless,

the strongest feeling in the world.

Two green gems like emeralds 

blink and before I know it you 

have turned again and your nails 

unsheathed—pluck at the grey quilt, and one by one 

retract, little 

holes left behind. I smooth the threads back together, some 

disappear completely 

but others are a gaping wound.

The wound between chambers, created by your upcoming absence. 

The way we know nothing and everything about the masses  formed from large cells flipped on their sides and invaded. 

It’s in logging good days and bad, 

that we lock our fingers together and fight.

Blame and guilt and the stifling fear of 

what not too long ago was only referred to as

The Big C.

Threatening everything.

We don’t win this time, your black silky coat gleams in the sun, brown in sections 

where light bends around shafts of hair differently—just there and there.

You are the smartest of your kind and I follow you around the house with

your tail between my fingers,

just trying to hold on.