They sit for years on a threshold

waiting for us to choose them.

Fetch, they learn,

and drop it:

that sock, this disc, that stone.

And then, when it is time,

they curl into themselves

on the table

and feel a hand

like mercy in their thinning fur

and stare into our eyes,

the wild eyes

of something that has held,

and taught, and brought them,

and has not yet learned

the simplest thing: let go.