ghost ranch

once again i’ve brought my dead dog to the party.
not the box of ashes, but the pen-drawn sketch
my friend lenny made six days after she died.

or five. i saw it coming, the way mimsy went. 
the hard part was saying it, so i wrote it down: 
something small i love is leaving me.

now it’s late morning in abiquiu & i’m alone 
in the courtyard, rolling around on the flagstone
breathing, a drawing of mimsy in the shade,

a mug cooling at her side. i said i don’t drink coffee
or need a week to myself but look at me now, trying 
not to lie. so i listen: a shrill of pinyon jays

in a juniper trills me from ghost to cobalt sky. all winter 
i didn’t see them, not a single thrill of murmuration 
& though it’s a hideous sound—a jay’s call, like a

small computer dying slow—to live, to move like that:
seven siblings at my side, six at each of theirs, my god! 
not thinking where’s the threat but being

more than one, not less than any . . .
the nearly-noon shadows recede & soon 
mimsy’s in full sun, where i leave her, the light

too bright to stay, the shrill too clear. i say yes,
i’ve seen a rock wren & no, that is a fishless osprey circling
the steppe & tomorrow i might make a cairn of quartz

just to knock it down, slip a stone into my pocket, 
put nine postcards in the mail, or begin another poem 
for lenny i’ll try to finish when i’m home—

                         you had a friend once.
                         now she’s different.
                         we remember what we need.