My mother reminds me 

gently, “It’ll come in waves.” 

Thus, I am a child again 

standing on a beach  

at dusk surrounded by drift 

-wood and eyeless fish watching 

waves white as bone 

crest then crash, crest 

but crash again against 

an ever-eroding shore. 

Or I am sinking into a sea 

of one thousand hands 

waving goodbye. I am  

not a child again. 

My dog is simply dying.