Dead Pets

They come between dreams, soft focus tails wagging, whiskers electric, the ones we have named. Wide-eyed refugees we had carried home in cars, or in our arms curled around trembling ribs. They return like blood to fill again a round vein on the surface of sensation. The tactile plasma of Patch, Lucky, and Tigger still checking our pulse. Those we once called mine, understand, it is we who were once theirs, once owned.