A sliver of ear gone; dog park tax, paid in blood and swagger.
He doesn’t tell me who took it. Never pipped a squeak. Bait dogs know the difference. Out there, the world takes pieces. Sometimes it’s bone, sometimes it’s time.
Charlie lets them have what they can bite off. He knows it’s never personal.
I touch the edgeragged, warm, and he looks at me with eyes that say this is the price, and the prize, of running with wolves.
We were owed this. After the years when the hills burned, when the air itself was a punishment, when the season leaned in close just to see if we’d flinch. We were owed this. And yet — thank you.
