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Sara Letourneau is the author of Wild Gardens (Kelsay Books, 2024); the book editor and writing coach at Heart of the Story Editorial & Coaching Services; the cofounder/cohost of the Pour Me a Poem open mic; and the co-editor of the Pour Me a Poem anthology. Her poetry has won the Beals Prize for Poetry and the Blue Institute’s 2020 Words on Water contest. Her most recent work can be found in The Arts Fuse, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, The Ekphrastic Review, Nixes Mate Review, Silver Birch Press, Third Wednesday Magazine, and Wild Greens Magazine. She lives in Foxboro, Massachusetts. Visit her online at https://heartofthestoryeditorial.com/.

On the Morning Neiko Came to Me in a Dream

Sara Letourneau

He wasn’t sprawled out on the comforter
or begging for breakfast. It was the morning after
his cancer diagnosis, and your fifteen-year-old cat
was hiding in your finished basement.
Neither you nor I had gotten much rest overnight.
Eventually, you crept downstairs to check on him,
and I drifted to sleep. Exhaustion, I suppose,
is the only way solitude is made bearable
when we’re grieving. The next thing I knew,
Neiko jumped onto the bed, walking without
that new, sluggish limp, his yellow-green eyes
shining as he spoke in a young boy’s voice,
Take care of my daddy for me—

I startled awake. I didn’t want to think
about him leaving us yet. I only wanted
to hold you in one arm and stroke Neiko’s
black-and-white fur with the other hand.
I only wanted to siphon away everyone else’s pain,
pluck the disease out of his small, bony body
so he wouldn’t need chemo, so he would eat again,
chase his favorite string, so all our future mornings
would be like they were just weeks ago.
But now, for the first and only time,
Neiko had asked a favor of me.
Who was I to say no to that?

— Sara Letourneau

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