a little thing

I watched a dog die today

such a little death -

back from my lunch break, I found her

in the parking lot, tiny and brown and smiling

wet nose to my palm, I scratched her chin

looked for a collar - none - tried to grab her, but

she ran, happy, looking for her family

who must’ve only loved her -

nothing human had ever hurt her before, and maybe

that’s why she ran right up

to the road, looked both ways and

trotted headfirst, unflinching, into

a gray SUV, going 50 down an incline.

she didn’t seem scared

but the sound of her little

body smacking against the plastic

bumper and then, her small brown shape

turned sudden-still and no-longer-smiling

broke up the pavement

now spattered with a streak of

red death.

you think, no - go back, just an instant

earlier, none of this happened - too easy an error,

just a few feet further and

you’d have reached her. she

could still be smiling, in another universe -

such a little thing, life. rare enough

that we cling to it - rarer, but

we ignore the rest.

I stood by the road, screamed

into the artificial wind, only created

by the cars speeding by, too fast

to care about the little things

down here on the ground.