the miracle dog
/love. determination and the fight to save bean. poetry in progress
the quiet life
me and bean. cape cod. sept. 2012.
his broad freckled chest now has a gnarly scar
where he was stitched back together
twice after the porcupine when
they cut his sternum bone in half
again to remove the right front lung
lobe after they found
twenty-four quills in his heart
three in his lungs, forty
removed the first time
they performed open heart open
lung surgery and he still
didn’t heal nine days later
we brought him home in
critical condition after two
nights of opioid torture in
the hospital parking lot we slept
at a campground until he was stable
enough to make it home
where he could not be left
alone and his medication
schedule was a short story
and his stitches became infected
the laundry constantly going to
rotate his t-shirt supply
to keep him clean and his harness
dry his sister constantly
by his side and
he healed as we
fought against odds not in our favor to
keep him alive
after thousands of quills were
pulled from his body they nicknamed
him the miracle dog
where we went for five weeks
for check-ups and eventually it
was summertime
and he slept on the deck
sprawled on the couch his
heart beating his lungs inflating
with salty air where he
swam and napped under
the apple trees
where life re-formed
every breath no longer a fight
but a reminder of
the value of the beat
the sigh and the light.
getdrunkbeardown
hugyourdog
may 12, 2017 recovery