Gamin Died Tonight
by Glenn Currier
In
an instant
across the millennia
that separate our species
she flew into my blue eyes
and I into the green depth of her soul.
Four inches long
eyes barely open
abandoned by her mother,
we found her
in a rusty shed out back,
searched the Spanish language
and found her name gamin
gah-MEEN, street urchin.
Her new mother
rousing herself at 3:00am,
nursed her drop by drop
and loved her by heart
while I slept.
I know not why
she made me her soul mate.
But when one night,
gripped by the black terror
of a forgotten abuse,
I bolted from the bed
and she cried for me
from another room,
I knew we belonged to each other.
I will miss her nightly greeting
as I enter the back door,
the rub of her gray fur on my ankles
that beautiful little face
with eyes that penetrated
the dullness of my days
and mined the kernels of joy
lodged in a place
I managed to hide
from all but her.
Now 15 years later
the small emerald of her life
has been freed
and it is I who am lost and poor
in the beggarly streets of grief.
