Mingy By Clay Waters

Mingy

Half-blind
she came to claim
our affection, playing
the staircase game, tummy rubs, all
she wished.
 
Until
the pain left her
curled up in the white room
finding that last best sleep, tail still
wagging.
 
From now
no day will pass
when we do not think of
that grunting, bouncy beast that loved
us too.

Clay Waters has had poems published in The Santa Clara Review, River Oak Review, Literal Latte, Poet Lore. His website is claywaters.org, featuring his self-published cozy mystery novel Death in the Eye. Clay lived in Florida until the age of four and recently returned to find it hasn’t changed a bit. Three of his six memories from that first stop involve the alphabet, which in retrospect was a bit of a tell.