It dreams it is a tunnel, threshold
to some happy-ever-after
that turned out to be neither happy
nor ever-after, but it does not know that.

It does not know what happened
after it slipped from her finger
as she chased the dog across the open field.
It does not know they fought over
who would keep the dog.

The dog didn’t even know they fought over it,
only that it was allowed to sleep
on the bed now, and lick a plate clean
every night, sometimes with a whole meal
intact but for a couple fork fulls.

The ring still dreams their dreams
before the fault opened between them—
before the fault was divided
into his fault and her fault.

It dreams photo albums slowly filling,
couple turning family turning future
turning pages in a story without end.
It doesn’t know the story has split
into two separate stories,
each with its own unreliable narrator.

It does not think of itself as a failure,
just lost, just misplaced
even as the stone loosens from its setting
to burrow deeper in the dirt.

As it dreams, the grass grows tall
around it, as it grows on the dog’s grave,
grows on his grave, and then on her grave,
unconcerned with what it covers.

Still it dreams the tunnel through
its center that once held a finger
still holds a promise, holds devotion,
holds something other than a hole.