Walttriznastories's Blog

When to Say Goodbye

 If all goes well it will never happen.
The dry grass in the shade whispers

while the vines crunch underfoot,
releasing a bitter odor. A year ago

I led my dog to his death, the third
in five years. How such counting

precedes affection, dwindles ever
so slowly, one star winking out after

another, till only the morning gray
hangs above us, solemn, indefinite.

Voiceless. If I could cock my head
to howl, who would understand? Not

one dog or three, neither mother nor
mentor, not my friend’s sister nor her

father and his nephews, the two boys
belted safely in the back seat. No.

I walk downhill and closer to the creek,
where the vines are still green.

In the shade of a large cedar, a turtle
slips into the water and eases away.

* * *

“When to Say Goodbye,” drafted during the…

The Writer

An hour’s drive towards the mountains there is a lake. A quiet, beautiful place, almost like a Norwegian fjord. I use to go there to write, ever since I started writing in earnest. They now print my picture on back covers, so I reckon I am an earnest writer at last. The hefty advance I’d been paid for my second novel seems to support that theory.

Three months after my debut has been published I go back to school, and if only for one night. Just to see who got fat, who got married, and who else got famous during the last ten years.