Needle and Spoon

Touch: The Journal of Healing

Needle and Spoon

for Buster

by Eric Blanchard

This is how we . . .

envelop in our arms, smother

with smooches and nuzzle.

Pull loose skin from endoskeleton,

stick the steel spike in.

Stay still

while the saline bag

empties.

Watch darting eyes

succumb to numbness, until

the slow

drip

stops.

Throw a ball. He

jumps and growls. We

laugh and smile

for as long as he has energy

or until it’s time to feed him.

Fickle, like an infant,

he must be coaxed with airplane noises,

plying tiny spoonful

after hopeful tiny spoonful,

until he

will no longer eat.

This is how we care, our

addiction, since cancer has claimed

appetite and vigor.

Eric Blanchard grew up in Houston, Texas. His poetry has been published in numerous literary journals and reviews, both on line and in hard copy, including Autumn Sky Poetry, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Pudding Magazine, Amarillo Bay, and Poetry Quarterly. Eric currently resides and writes in Kettering, Ohio.