Day 470

He stopped along the way
because he saw a dog
who was injured, bleeding.
His own leg was wrapped
in gauze, a wound sustained
maybe a week before; and he bent,
unwound the end of the gauze
from his leg, bit it off,
wrapped it around the dog’s
leg.  The dog followed him:
quiet, limping.  The gauze
turned red with the dog’s
blood as the part still wrapped
around the man’s leg was red
with his blood.  So they walked,
a man whose family
had been killed, a dog
who maybe had belonged to someone,
who appeared out of nowhere,
who had probably been surviving
on rotting flesh.  So they walked
without food, without water,
until they came to a place
where the man sat down
on a pile of rubble
and the dog lay down
beside him.  Everything there
was dust. Everything there
had been flattened.  Maybe
they promised each other
something in that moment? Because those
who saw them walking together
wherever they were going afterward
said they never left
each other’s side.