lay at the side of the street, lost, searching, hit by a car, defeated, abandoned, dead, under the light rain, outside the circle of streetlight. I pulled over. No dog lover, neither appreciative nor patient with rough voices or watery intelligence, and nothing to do, nothing to be done. But couldn’t leave it behind swallowed in night though had no place for it anywhere, pulled over, parked, walked back to do something about which there was nothing to be done, by anyone, except to suffer somewhere I couldn’t reach for an animal I didn’t love, having only that to offer, that, and a willingness to be witnessed by the eons that see nothing and the earth that sips the ruin of nations and deaths of children with the same mild thirst, be witnessed next to the dead dog, the man with his hands full of nothing. Stood over the dog. And saw that it was a half roll of dirty carpet, soaked and collapsed, thrown off a truck perhaps, trick of dim light. A car pulled up next to me, window rolled down, the driver leaned over and asked, “Is that dog okay?” in his voice the whole story, that the dog wasn’t okay, and the empty-handedness.