A Corgi Nearing Death From Cancer Poem by Charl JF Cilliers

One day she began to swell,
her stomach bloating,
and her breath began to smell
of death: she walked as if floating.

Unsteady on her feet,
she’d pretend she was not
on her way to her bowl to eat:
when she faltered she’d simply squat

as if wanting to urinate.
She lay in the darkest corner under the bed.
Eventually stopped drinking and hardly ever ate,
though she always appeared to be overfed.

She made no sound of complaint.
Never went to her spot where she sunned
herself normally near the door. As the faint
glow in her eyes grew fainter she increasingly shunned
the light, but still her every breath
was a rasping growl against the skulking prowl of death.