For 280 dog-years
you have been there,
my faithful companion,
a step or two behind,
always keeping pace.
Sometimes, when you vanish
for days or even weeks,
I begin to think
you are gone for good,
taken away perhaps
by the animus control.
Then, in the depths
of some restive night
I hear you again,
rummaging through
the refuse of memory,
noisily dragging out
forgotten slights,
digging up old bones
of contention,
and I know you are back,
will always come back.
