You called it a surgical abscissionwhen I left, our years togethersliced away with a sharp blade,almost brutally quick & clean.But for me it was more like drowningthe chipmunk in the shiny tin pailof this October morning, the rainsuspended like a sheer curtainbetween me & the sun. When I sawthe small, soft nose poking out, then in,then out of the black plastic tunnelhiding the spring trap, I wantedto go back inside the warm cabin.I wanted to go back in time, beforefinding the trap, before it was set.I wanted to let nature & her wolvestake their hungry course, & live onin ignorance or hope a severed spinemight somehow heal on its own.Above all, I wanted someone elseto decide. But, something aboutVirginia Woolf & the stonesshe put in her pockets before wadingout into the Ouse & this creatureright here, where I had to look,unable to move & in pain. The sunshimmered the rain into gauze,hung as if for extreme unction.I could not not-see it then, whathad to be done & be done by me,alone. I had all I needed: the pail,& the pump to fill it with water.The stone was for mercy.