Blank Elixir

I have seen the skin of the red dog
the blood spread over it,
small and growing mantle,
foam in the mouth
and it cannot move,
it wants to lick ice,
I give ice, but know
that ice is far too slow
I send for water,
cannot leave, gripped
as it is in feral terror.
Water does not come.
Those of us who have lived
half our lives in autumn
close to winter
are intimate with this end.
(Where is the luster, he had asked
the day before, the joy?
and the question slithered
through my veins, a blank elixir.)
The dog contorted violently,
hurled, you son, SON OF A BITCH!
at his suffering.  Not death.
Actual words, and I was so? proud.
I woke and was doped,
lurching on blankness and thirst,
both constant -- and red,
like red is constant.