Dear Dog by Angel Henry

You weren’t the baby.  Not even maybe.  Adopted, yes.  And we said family. Yes.  But doesn’t everyone?  It’s so pleasing to the tongue. To indiscriminately call others “mom” or “sis” or “brother.” But when someone dies, that lie is startled into the kitchen light with its sad mastiff face. Dog, you were as precious as the moon. But you weren’t the baby, and the moon’s reflected light anyway, isn’t it?  You slept with us, your warm breathing a space between wall and arm.  We patted that tight, gray drum of a belly.  We worried over your bloody paws.  That was genuine.  And our laughter.  But the world is cruelly measured.  We did not pour the water this way, but pour it does.  The baby’s vitamins were a little more special, dog.  Please understand. Her food was more wildly varied and colorful day to day as we introduced to her all the tastes of the world in front of your betrayed eyes. Your brown clods of food, however, stayed largely the same. Except for what you stole. Listen, dog, I’m sorry. But the punishment for biting was never going to be the same. One of you could be forgiven but the other…Dog, dog, that’s just the way it is, you know?