dead leaves

my girlfriend's
guinea pig
died
earlier tonight,
and she
cried much
when she saw
his
limp body,
his empty
sunspot
eyes, his
cowlicks,
overbite and
little clawed feet.
it happened
only
a few hours
after she
had given him
a haircut,
and we
placed him
in an oversized
shoebox and
buried
him by
flashlight
behind our
apart-
ment near
a pile of
dead leaves
and a
footpath
and the
silhouette
of a fence.

–published in Newsletter Inago (March 2000)