M. Bartley Seigel
How we tremble as we go to meat
–for Sachi
I shot my dog in the back of the head
to free her from a pain slowly gnawing
her gut inside out. A hard thing to do
for a friend, pull the trigger at the cool
end of summer, much harder than they say.
The echo lingers, a soft bulletin,
faith and trust, then the pistol does its job.
Oh, how we tremble as we go to meat,
for a second, maybe two. Then black night
and the remainders weep, our days, our days,
bang and star burst as earth and memory
render us all down for some new purpose.
May we all be so loved. Not a great song,
less a prayer, but it will have to do.
M. Bartley Seigel is the author of This Is What They Say (poetry, Typecast Publishing, 2012). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Forklift Ohio, H_NGM_N, Lumberyard Magazine, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pamplemousse, and numerous elsewheres. He is founding editor and publisher of PANK Magazine, co-publisher of Tiny Hardcore Press, and teaches at Michigan Technological University. He lives with his family in Houghton, Michigan, and sometimes in Tartu, Estonia.
Return to July 2015 Edition
–for Sachi
I shot my dog in the back of the head
to free her from a pain slowly gnawing
her gut inside out. A hard thing to do
for a friend, pull the trigger at the cool
end of summer, much harder than they say.
The echo lingers, a soft bulletin,
faith and trust, then the pistol does its job.
Oh, how we tremble as we go to meat,
for a second, maybe two. Then black night
and the remainders weep, our days, our days,
bang and star burst as earth and memory
render us all down for some new purpose.
May we all be so loved. Not a great song,
less a prayer, but it will have to do.
M. Bartley Seigel is the author of This Is What They Say (poetry, Typecast Publishing, 2012). His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in DIAGRAM, Forklift Ohio, H_NGM_N, Lumberyard Magazine, Michigan Quarterly Review, Pamplemousse, and numerous elsewheres. He is founding editor and publisher of PANK Magazine, co-publisher of Tiny Hardcore Press, and teaches at Michigan Technological University. He lives with his family in Houghton, Michigan, and sometimes in Tartu, Estonia.
Return to July 2015 Edition