Beyondness

The woman on the phone tells me my dog is dying

I want to mute her

She carries on, “metastasis,” she says, “both lungs”

I have long stopped understanding

I am no longer here

Where does the mind disappear to when bad news strikes us?

Beyondness must be the place’s name

A place beyond time, where there is no consciousness, no awareness, no thinking

Somewhere between space and earth, where men and women, children too, go when the pain is too much

We stay there briefly, stunned, in awe, we fall out of time or, rather, we ascend out of time

There’s no gravity there either, other laws of physics operate

And then, by some, also unexplained phenomenon, we return

Back in the here and now, my house, my bedroom, this phone, the news

Back to the realization that something has, once more, changed forever

Call the children, give them the news, go fetch the dog, spoil her for the rest of your life together, write her a poem, or two