I had come home after a week,
Oh, you had looked so bleak.
Your soft memory only makes my heart sink.

I set out your dry dog food.
You ate like a bear out of its late hibernation,
The way your tail wagged made me so soothed.

"Mother and father," I thought,
"Had you even cared?"
My, you must have been so scared.

My body was worn enough,
I did not watch you like our every day stuff.
This thought haunts my inner mind.

An hour passed,
Your ear piercing yelp rang through my head,
Although I had no idea you'd soon be dead.

Mother told me to stay on the steps,
Her gasp made my heart sink,
All the way to the lonely depths.

She picked up your stiff, tiny body.
Your image made me sick,
But I knew then your life was at a tick.

Fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes, just those horrid fifteen minutes!
Our transportation was at its limits.
Dad had left but moments before, we're sitting ducks in unknown climates.

Your eyes so blank,
I whimpered and cried,
Begging you to stay away from life's plank.

Dad wouldn't answer any call;
Our attempts to help were at a stall.
Please don't go, please don't go! You are my all.
Mom took you from me,
Is this really to be?
Dad drove up and we swarmed like angry insects.

All piled in,
Harley, I need you to win!
I thought, "if I had watched, would this still have been?"

Five minutes, five minutes, just those horrid five minutes.
Miles per hour, legal speed has its limits.
Beat death, beat death! Don't be at all timid.

I stared out the window,
Someone's at the car wash, oh how the water flows.
Then mother's voice broke my trance.

"No, don't go!
Harley it's okay,
Hang in there, later you and Cera can play!"

All went deathly silent,
I shuddered and told myself it is not so,
Mother's sobs said it all, it can't be true - no!

I won't believe it,
Not for a second,
But then she turned my way.

There you were,
My vision blurred,
"It was quick."

That's all she could say?
She told you we could play!
Harley, why didn't you stay?

I can't,
I won't except this,
My only response was a painful hiss.

She handed you to me,
Does this really have to be?
It is not fair!

You always kept me safe,
Why did you die in such a place
I hate the bitterness on my tongue.

You need me once,
Just once, just once!
That is not what anyone wants.

I held your lifeless body close.
I need your reassuring dose.
But you are gone, so long?

Seventy-five minutes, seventy-five minutes, just those appalling seventy-five minutes,
That's all it took,
Now look what life took as if a heartless crook.