Revive the Archive: Amity Bitzel’s “Eclipse” (2005)

Revive the Archive is a weekly series that brings new eyes to previously published works. This week we look at “Eclipse” by Amity Bitzel. This piece was originally published in volume 11 of The York Review

That day was blindingly bright, hot sticky taffsun-
yet as I was wracked with shivers, teeth chattering in sharp little bites.
As we drive I whispered to him as best as I could, the traitorous
Heave of the heart underpinning my lies.

Five, ten years ago he would have been fluid, running, a streak of russet
and chocolate flaming across a field.
Now he curled silently in the backseat, too tired for even a whimper,
old bones sighing and creaking in minor key.

I thought of how his hips went first, the proud straight lines inverting
into brittle and crooked sticks, all that flesh wasting, wasting.
Or the first time he fell down the stairs, the sound his paws made,
scrabbling for purchase with a black and fathomless urgency.

Now his paws dangled as we gently lifted him from the car, into the room
smelling of steel and the bright, clean bite of alcohol.
Placed on the table, he shifted his blocky head in question, ears cocked.
His fur smelled of sunwarmed grass and the darkest, richest, soil.

I twined my fingers in the silk of his ear; the silvery drop of liquid on the needle
shimmered and fell — it was, finally, all that I could see.