Member Poem

I buried my cat on a Sunday morning
while people headed to churches in suits and dresses
wafers and wine
their connection
to a god they’ve never met.
 
I’m afraid to pet my cat’s body again
his stares are too open
his mouth a slit whisper.
 
I measured time passed with fingers of scotch
each finger disappearing at a too fast rate
disparate
from the inches dug into the ground.
 
My dad dug wells when I was a child
ripped through dead roots buried
Exhumed rocks nestled amongst soil.
 
My hole too circular to frame the
shoebox
that walled his lead body
unlike the rectangular grave
perfectly dug out for your body.
 
Your funeral
a closed casket affair
the cancer that bloated your body pear-shaped
encased behind oak and copper walls.
 
You asked about my cat in our last conversation
I promised you lunch to catch up
on lost times that had remained untold.
 
I wonder now if you called as your last good-bye.
 
My cat did his last good-byes on Friday
when he sunbathed
ate the chicken off
our pizzas.
 
I ate at tables with strangers
My ‘you’ exchanged with their ‘you’.
Your wife gave me a long hug
and I felt that maybe this was the long hug
I still owed you.
 
My dad dug wells when I was a child
to catch the rain when it fell
to contain each drop before the faucets ran dry again
before the earth withered bare.