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218 Shrine and Ashes in memory of Zabi (Hunter-Pisces Zabione, 1991 – 2004) Today it’s your collar and tags I buckle around the blue velvet bag. Yesterday, the sentimental saying embroidered there I turned to face the wall. And the day before that, at the vet, we picked up the cardboard box with your ashes in a vase delivered from the pet cemetery crematorium in the far end of the valley to the west. The day before that, I lit a candle I found in the drawer and put it in the silver candlestick with a tiny thumb-hold for a handle. And before that, I put the picture frame with photo of the puppy pen we built for you, the snapshot a little out of focus, but you were sharp, front and center, with toy. And the day before that, no good news. You’d gone downhill faster than we thought, a sharp drop-off from our high hopes that maybe you could come home from the hospital and we could keep on carrying you up and down the stairs. 219 Denial is as steep as that, old pet. And the day before, and yet. ...

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