Where does life go when it’s gone? Here, my dog looks like he’s sleeping but he’s deader than a rock and rocks aren’t even alive though they’re part of something bigger and that’s the Earth. But truth doesn’t help me now, if that’s truth. I found my pet on the side of the highway. He’d been hit in the night, when I was dreaming and he was roaming. Or I was roaming and he was dreaming. Perhaps I’m the dead one and he found me. Anyway, I’m about to bury him and the hole is big enough for two dogs —I get carried away—or just one dog and a master smaller than the other boys at school. Father wanted to help me put him in the ground, but I said, No, sir, I’ll do it myself—it’s like my duty. Well, he said. Well, I think I understand. He went to sit on the front porch and I carried Caesar around to the garden and between Father’s vegetables and Mother’s flowers, to the terrace below and beneath the shade of the sassafras trees. Saplings really. I chose a likely spot, not too near to their roots but not so far from them that the grave would stand out. I dug and dug and it was good digging, no roots and stones to upset the stomach of my shovel, which spat out anyway soil in a mound beside the hole. That’s the hole itself, I guess, piled up to see, and yet it’s what's empty, too. I pick up Caesar —it’s easy because he’s hard, like a thick board covered with cloth, or a fur coat, which Mother’s always wanted. One day. One day. I place him in and he looks happy there, eyes and mouth open. I pet him once more, smooth his coat. I guess it’s for the last time —who knows but when I die I’ll rise again, just like they say at church? Hard to believe but that’s why it’s religion, I guess. Just when they say I’m too old for kids’ stuff they’re trying to get me to care for God, but that’s grown-ups for you, and there may be somethng to the Bible after all. It’s a good story, anyway. But only God knows. Goodbye, boy, I say, and cover Caesar over and tromp down on the grave so all the dirt that I took out will fit back in. And then I’m done and now it’s time to put the shovel up and wash my hands. I put the old bag of dog food away —why throw it out?—and the bowl and water dish. I go up to my attic bedroom and try not to think about what I’ve lost because it seems like nearly everything even if only a dog. I wonder if I haven’t lost something else, too, some part of me. If I did, it isn’t in the grave, at least not Caesar’s. It may be waiting alongside mine, wherever that is. I doubt I’ll find it while I’m still alive —only by forgetting will I learn to understand, but I want to remember, so when it’s time for them to lower me I won’t be too surprised to find me there ahead of myself, happy to see me.
Gale Acuff has had poetry published in Ascent, Ohio Journal, Descant, Adirondack Review, Worcester Review, Maryland Poetry Review, Florida Review, South Carolina Review, South Dakota Review, Santa Barbara Review, and many other journals. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel (BrickHouse, 2004), The Weight of the World (BrickHouse, 2006), and The Story of My Lives (BrickHouse, 2009).