Inheritance

I wasn’t my mother’s first choice to take her little dog.

My sisters said in unison, No, No, when I volunteered

as we ate pasta at the only decent restaurant near

the hospital where our mother lay in the cancer ward.

The day my mother died, I picked up her Shih Tzu from

her friend Joan’s house – both she and Bijou were at odds.

She won’t walk on the tile, Joan complained.

We lived alone with each other in my mother’s house

for two weeks. Bijou stood in the front hall staring

at the door, tears wetting her droopy cheeks. Then

she found her way to the corner of my checkered

bedspread, her untethered bond crumpled next to mine.

I walked her twice a day, learning her stride.

She stopped to smell, peed like a yoga master –

hind legs in the air, her weight on her front feet,

backend streaming in a graceful semicircle.

Her breathing quickened when we ran, her flat face

bred for looks, not function, she taught me to stroll.

Orphans of the same mother, our love propping

up that elderly woman in her final years.

Returning to the U.S., I’d bought a silver soft carrier,

gathered all the necessary paperwork – proof of

rabies shot, name of vet – but the border guard

didn’t notice her, so we silently exited Canada.

Now Bijou, over 100 in dog years with leaky

heart, Pancreatitis, her walk cockeyed, sleeps

on her grey bed, snores like my mother and it is

I who must decide when she leaves this world.