The Weight of Grief

It started with a lump in the throat,
the dog’s throat, to be exact. Lying
in the cool grass beneath the spent lilac,
I rubbed her neck and found it. Like a grape,
it rolled between my fingers.  Cyst, I thought.
At the vet, a week later, it had grown pillow
like and the size of a coin purse. Nothing
to do  but love her, which is easy as breathing,
but heavier now. The place in my chest where my heart
hangs beating out its life song
feels like a sack of cement.  All the muscles
in my body slack and heavy. Outside,
she lies Sphinx-like between the Mock
Orange and Ponderosa Pine, the best
place to survey her domain.  Thunder rumbles,
and somewhere, rain falls on the distant mountains
slaking the onset of drought. Like my tears
gathering in hidden places waiting to fall.