After Death






After Death





Don't tell me 

my dog’s not 

in Heaven.



It doesn't mean crap

if you think there’s a Heaven or not

and if we can't know for ourselves

how can you know for my dog,

who loved me more 

than any human ever did,

showed me in a million ways,

always wanting to walk, play,

lay by me when I was sick,

not eat till I was well, 

bark every bogeyman,

possum or garbage truck away,

eyes on my every move  

till death did us part. 



What a special man 

I was to her.

I loved her,

walked her, 

mapped our neighborhood,

played with her,

threw uncounted sticks,

scuffled her floppy ears, 

every sniffle to the vet.

I was dog’s best friend.



We gave each other more comfort

than even Heaven could. 



If lots of people

conjure or assume

some kind of afterlife

for humans,

angels, harps, gold streets,

virgins sucking down grapes,

a smothering Oversoul,

one God, many,

don't tell me Lola

is not there, 

damn it. 



Rollicks in those green fields,

romps with other animals,

chases down those sticks,  

inexhaustible as my love.



She is.





Vern Fein





Vern Fein is a career special education teacher who decided to write fiction after he retired, but wrote a few poems also and now has over seventy poems published in a variety of venues like *82 Review, The Literary Nest, Bindweed Magazine, Gyroscope Review, Ibis Head Review, Former People, 500 Miles, and The Write Launch, and has non-fiction pieces in Quail Bell, The Write Place at the Write Time, and Adelaide, plus a short story in the online magazine Duende from Goddard College.



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