A Nick, to the Heart, Is a Fatal Wound
by E.V. Noechel
My arms feel so empty.
I stand 12lbs short, a little dog less. I guess
losing just two-thirds of a pound of flesh
per year should be a bargain.
That, and just a small sliver
of muscle cut from my heart
that will never grow closed. A tiny bit extra
thrown in like a tip to your server. Death
is always demanding a little more than its due.
It taps its foot and sighs loudly
even as we gasp our goodbyes.
So now I’m going to write this down,
make a thousand copies and hand them out
like tragic none-of-your business cards
because every time I’m asked where you are,
I feel my faith in pure, reckless joy
dying in my arms again. And again. I hear it crying out
through your death rattle, shivering under
the crushing weight that presses life from your lungs
as you claw at the walls and unconsciously bite
at the escaping air. It’s the sound you make as you
claw at bleeding bits of your own muscle in a desperate fight
to remain, even as you’re dragged down, sinking
hopelessly away. It’s a literal fight to the death.
You’d do that? To stay. With me?
Or because samsara sucks you out and leaves you
shivering on the bloodslick floor? And that’s how
your life begins again. Plopped into a world
you’ll no doubt need rescuing from. Again.
Humans take advantage of naive little animals.
Statistics show you’ll be caged among the other confused,
abandoned, and lost. It’s how we give shelter,
the best way we know how. If you’re lucky
you’ll only be caged with good intentions, but
we’ll also cage you for sale, for convenience,
for science, for money—something you’ll never fully
understand and I hope you never have to try. Your mother
may live in a box forever, producing young for
auction, for her “owner”, for an impulse buyer or a sucker
prone to buying raw, unfinished affection, wiggling whining
hope wrapped up in a shelf-stable package at the mall. “Would you like
to hold the puppy?” while a long-haul truck ride away
his mother’s jaw disintegrates a little more
with every warm wiggling litter taken from her
because her body protects her puppies at all costs.
Calcium for their sweet little bones has to come from somewhere,
and it aint coming from that tin pail of Ol’ Roy circulating
With a clang from cage to cage. It keeps them alive
but with not one thing to spare. And so she finds it hard
and harder to crush the hard one size fits all kibble
made for mouths of dogs that could swallow her whole.
Such an ignorant species. We are clumsy when it comes to love.
All finesse when it comes to greed.
So, knowing all of this to be true, here I stand helpless. Useless.
It’s completely out of my hands and still, I know, my responsibility.
I’ve spent every second that I’ve known you trying
to be of some worth to you. To all of you. But now here I am
a guard dog with no bark, no teeth. My pink, drooling gums
unable to delay, let alone waylay death
when it rips you from my arms in cruel fetid silence
or meticulously sucks the fight out of a thousand strays.
It steals without effort, without hesitation and I’m left
holding your empty corpse, calling frantically after you
“pick a good—no—a safe rebirth. Please. Please. Please.”
Unintelligibly repeating through blubbery tears,
“Don’t. Let. Us. Hurt. You.” long after
the vet takes your body for burning.
E.V. Noechel lives with OCD, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, severe chronic pain, and an assortment of delightful rescued animals. Her work has received multiple Pushcart nominations and generous support from the North Carolina Arts Council, Vermont Studio Center, Headlands Center for the Arts, United Arts, Culture and Animals Foundation, and I-Park.
