Mad Dog

It was grandma’s last winter. I watched her hurry outside to split enough wood so her old kitchen stove would burn through the new storm she felt gathering along the horizon, its first eiderdown already afloat on the twilight settling over her white garden. From nowhere a dog tormented by visions plunged through the drifts and laid ahold of her leg. She hacked half through its neck and crawled to the house, dragging the axe in her blood-trail lest she lose it in the snow. She bandaged her wound at the sink. My breath frosted the pane, and rubbing a hole I peered through the gloom at the scarlet peony blooming ‘round the dog’s matted head. The thickening whorl of snow gently tousled its fur, tucking it in until spring.