i remember the last time i saw you.
i was driving, the city filled to the brim with life,
bursting at the seams, ready to rupture, teeming;
the streets full of people,
food, friendship, and follies,
grit, broken glass, the great steeple
ringing, one bell later than the others,
cars passing, one ways one way, bi-ways the other way,
with one great dane prancing between sidewalk and asphalt.

it was april, yet the cold would lap up at your ankles
and consume you before you knew it.
it was unusual for this time of the year;
it would happen every couple of weeks and settle down eventually.
it ran fast, the legs outstretching the body, overtaking its pace
and scrunching up, like a spring of flesh and sinew.
i wouldn’t have imagined this to be the last big chill –
not a sign of slowing, but cold is warm enough.

it was fast. really fast;
straight into a car it ran.
it’s as if it didn’t know it was dead yet, it kept running.
as if the cold was a cruel anesthetic
we locked eyes, the second law granting this creature a momentary reprieve;
when its muscles twisted... a moiety of bone and bloody foam...
...caught between forming a next stride and giving way to that incalculable force.
i called you. i called for you.
you said you were never there for me and I apologized.