This will be the last time

We walk this path together –

We thought, defeated.

But that was then, and here we are

Your paws submerged in the dead brown pond.

Again you lived to swim

And again you walked home

Through the woods, down the lane, still toward another winter.

This will be the last time

I think, thankful

For how you’ve proved us wrong before.

But that was then, and now is different.

Your bowl is never emptied now,

You need help off the ground now,

And death is not a stranger but

Now a mass in your brain.

This—inevitable

This will be the last time,

And it will have been enough.