Ringtail
“Im tired of being a butcher”
I mumble to myself as a doleful eye
Ricky stared up at me.
trapped in a cage my father hadnt warned
him or me about,
much like the hospital, not gonna die
but a far cry from living
standard practice is to dispatch
then unlatch, dump the remains
of naviety and boyhood away from the fence
“I’m tired of being the butcher”
I mumble again to myself
winding down the same road where
a different dispatch was called in
10 years before, MPDS 25
I raise the cage door by the river
and they burst forth 10 feet
a dumbfounded turn about,
I think they said “Did I make it?”
The pups cry in the car
so I know it time to go
a sunsets on two lives saved today, him and me.
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Vivid moment! Loved how you put the end and my favorite line is “trapped in a cage my father hadnt warned/him or me about”