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NEOPET

Seven o’clock after work
Is a beautiful time.
Klaus chews his kibble
And sifts almost rhythmically
For his favorite brown balls.
The house feels so big
With my dog and future
Wife sitting in separate rooms.

Is it true that we never talked,
Like, out loud, until we had
Dogs to speak to?
Last week walking home
From the vet I heard the nurse
Greet two poodles:
Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry
The Great British Bake-Off hosts.

If we hadn’t arrived to
The vet when we did
Klausy probably wouldn’t
Have made it. Now
Watching him lick his paws
Sprawled across the sofa
“Neopet” is the sweetest
Word that comes to mind.

I miss AOL, BBM, MSN,
The three-letter acronyms
And the years that they stood for:
Quiet mornings waking up
To parents already at work,
Song-lyric away messages
And crushes I knew only
By their AIM handles
Pints of Ben & Jerry’s spent
Looking up Xanga backgrounds
And neon fonts.

If our dog had choked
While we were debating
Insurance carriers and wedding bands
What would we have done
With his kibble bowls?
Never have I ever
Had such a small thing
To be so scared to lose.

When you don’t want kids
It’s important to figure out
How you’re going to pass the time.
I get so fragile
When the clocks turn back.
There are tulips on the table
that aren’t tilting toward me.

Shut off the fire
While our neopet laps
The last bit of water
Out of his bowl.

Here are the three of us, changing.

We look so beautiful tonight
I want to turn this moment
Into a GIF that plays on loop
After each of us is gone.

Neopet, neopet, neopet.

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