Author: katkarney

I lost my beloved Labrador at the beginning of the month due to complications with late-stage lymphoma. Stanley was a month shy of being 11 years old. From diagnosis to his passing, we had 2 weeks. Two glorious weeks of eating whatever the hell he wanted. Two weeks to cherish my soulmate. Two weeks of couch cuddles and slow, cold walks around the block.

On his last day, I made him his favorite mini apple lattice pie. He got a cheeseburger and fries. We went on a short loop walk in his favorite park. He lay in the center of our living room among the baby’s toys, listening to the extended family talk. He always kept track to make sure we were all safe. He left the room to lie down on his bed in the den, where he began having breathing complications and shaking.

Stanley passed peacefully that evening at the emergency vet. I cradled and kissed his head, listing every person who ever loved him. My mom rubbed his back.

As a survivor, I must bear the burden of unconditional love into the interminable future and carry the wellsprings of joy and pain that his memory evokes.

The posts for the foreseeable future will be about our life together. I’ve revised some old pieces as an attempt to write my way through grief, but it is insufficient.

I wrote the below in Fall of 2019. Just Stan and me building a new life in this big old rental.

labrador retriever at 3:23 AM

the dog whines to go outside
i walk slow from my bedroom
down the steep steps
and he clumsily follows

“don’t knock me down
the goddamn stairs!”
i stage whisper
– he snorts

we emerge
into crisp Cleveland
he relieves himself
on the hydrangea bush

amber streetlights
illuminate the leaves
splaying patterns
across my pale limbs

cool air carries
close scents:
hot piss
a distant skunk

he smells the wind
and comes back inside
to drink water like a moose

my mind seeks
the gentle tones
of human voices
rustling in the treetops

i whisper back
to the breeze
“Stan’s a good boy”
and pet his velvet ears

he is already asleep
unfathomably peaceful
a cozy, rounded-corner
of blackness

(first dream of the new year)

We rescue three kittens:
One striped and two black.
I know it is a dream because I am not allergic.

make the sign of the cross
(up, down, left, right)

lift your eyes, ask the rafters:
what incense, what votive
can restore faith?

lose the rosary
but not the feeling
of thumbing the cherrywood beads

of bone-carved agony, begging for relief

forget
the right words
& whisper instead:

there is you
there is pain
and there is death

image (ruined large format negative with black label maker applique)
text: (black label maker strips with white lettering)

i am the
swirling
island of
plastic trash

i am the ocean

great grandma raised two kids alone
until asthma took her one morning

her husband abandoned the family
her jewelry became a warning

encircling bones
of hands unknown
glittering gold
and amethyst:

beware what a man
can carve from your soul
simply by dissipating

beware anyone
who limits your creativity for their own comfort

or requires continuous reassurance
while denigrating emotional intelligence

they will make self-deprecating jokes that aren’t jokes
and through self loathing, destroy you both

beware the poet
the final word is always theirs

to be whole
on one’s own

not confused
with the yoke

he places
upon his

own shoulders

when the neighbor’s cows shuffled into the field
dad would always shout "cows are out!" 
and we (forgive us, just two kids) would burst 
through the side door. i gathered emerald strands
of rain-fattened grass just outside of the cows'
reach, twisting them into thick braids.  their
noses would nuzzle, tongues unfurl. you taught 
me that summer how to tell if the fence was on: 
by taking a strand of long grass (an imperfect 
conduit) and touching it to the hot wire. if it
was on, the  bones  of  our  arms  would  thrum.
pain  gently  weaving  through  the  radius and
ulna in electric plaits.  we would smile,
then, in the fading light. grass to the fencetop.
mostly fearful of not having loved another fully.  
not yet knowing how to love ourselves.
(oh, forgive us! just two kids, then.)
learning  new  ways  to  ease  into  the  hurt. 

i sort dry peas into a metal bowl
removing the golden brown
defective bits

they slip through my fingers
– green hailstones, smacking
upon a tin roof

i get the feeling
when the light slants this way
on the rough bricks of my neighbor’s house

we should be at the park a mile away
in the sun’s warm rays
as it sets later

and later

A train blasts a loud warning, rocking past sooty little houses near the shipyards.


Next, the call and response of a Canadian freighter ship and the reedy bascule bridge (L O W W W W W … H I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I ) drown out the familiar whine of oar belts just at the mouth of the Black River.

The bridge, opening at the center, stops traffic. The road stands in two vertical columns.

My brother catches fish marred with gaping sores on their gills. I run about the jagged ruins of the shipyards throwing rusted soldering rods into the churning, oily water with a TWHIP!

We pause, enthralled by the massive boat’s approach.

A nearby tugboat captain remarks that we need a decent pair of shoes – a junk heap being no place for a pair of skinny kids in flimsy flip-flops. And don’t screw around that close to the river, because if you slip the ship’s undertow will take you down, and you’ll never come back up.

We don’t listen, though – just watch the freighter slide toward the lifting rail bridge, eyes glued on the tracks, listening for more trains.

Somebody mistimed this, once.

We are drawn to the possibility of a more spectacular catastrophe.