SmokeLong Quarterly

Sergeant still brings you his leash, secured in his mouth. He waits by your bedside, tail wagging. He only senses something wrong, a whimper when he glances at the prosthetic legs leaning against the wheelchair. A car bomb at dusk in Iraq. This first week home and you refuse to leave the house. It is seven in the morning and your mother walks into your bedroom and smiles, nothing said, grabs the leash and leads Sergeant outside for his morning walk. Good boy, she says. Good boy.