Rescue

At night I feel her jump onto my bed and plop down next to me

Like an asteroid to the earth, her crater sinks deep into my mattress.

She's heavy, content, and fattened from this life we give her.

Each night we feast like kings at the altar of affection,

The breaths through her nose now tickling the back of my neck under the sheets.

We are here

and she is happy.

The adoption agency said they found her chained to a fence for who knows how long.

Reduced to a bag of skin, bones, and ratty black fur.

Many wonder how she suffered. So do I.

But some nights as she creeps her head onto my chest in the early dark morning,

I wonder if during the nights chained up she looked at the stars above her,

and thought to herself:

“I am one of God's creatures who he abandoned.

Left to rot by the taller people who ignore me.

I lay here cold and hungry tonight.

But it is still a night. And tomorrow will be day, and then night again, and then that will unfold until forever.

The world has rejected me, but I do not reject the world.

So tonight I will look up at the stars and dream.

For it’s all I can do.”