white plastic box

Because she is so
linda.
My best friend
ever.

Oh, God
I love her.
Why
did she have to die?

She's just a dog
they all said; just get another one.
Bury the body. In any old back yard;
now she's just a pile of bones, soon forgotten.
Alone, numb, weeping mutely, I lifted her stiff body.
Her once-warm heart no longer beating. One final trip in the car.
This last, a misadventure.

Would you bury your mom
in any old back yard?
A small, white plastic box,
its neatly typed label: Lindie Beller.
Renews my river of sorrow.
Hot, salty tears, torrents, sting my cheeks;
impossible heartache crushes my chest. Just bones. Now ashes.

Oh, dear God! the pain, its weight unbearable.
My heart, warm only from the blood still pulsing through it,
has cracked, ripped, fractured: tiny pebbles of glass
from a vandalized car. My heart, now a black hole never-ending.
Black as coal, dark and dense, and rough-edged.
My grief is fatal, hopeless, beyond recall.
Please, God, bring her back. please.