What is that shape,
surrounded by flies?
I step closer, expecting feces.
But it is a small, helpless cat.
A crusty liquid
seals it’s small eyes.
A kitten, lying so stiff.
Of course! I dare not touch it!
It must be
dirty…
I am horrified.
It lies not in a heap,
but a cruel position,
in which it seems to be
sleeping on it's side.
The seasons are changing,
I can see
the leaves falling.
The ginkgo fruits reek of filth.
I am glad for those fruits,
for they saved me
the horror of smelling
the carcass.
For flies always surround things that smell gross.
It is times like this,
that I wish to throttle mother nature for such
cruelty.
I don’t know what to do,
should I pick it up and place it in the grass,
not the cold, grimy concrete?
Again, I remember,
‘I dare not touch it!’
For it must be soiled.
A man walks past,
catching my hateful gaze.
He laughs, and I realize his age.
He is quite old, this man, for those wrinkles are so deep,
and he shivers so violently against
the light breeze.
He roughly sweeps the body under the
bush with the side of his shoe.
I cannot see it anymore.
I stare at the bush,
‘Why did he do that?’
He tells me to go home, ‘It’s chilly.’
A sad grin holds his face as he walks by,
so naturally,
as if he saw nothing.
As if he had seen this many times before.
I came to see it the next day,
hoping to put at least a few flowers,
but it was
gone.
About that dead cat,
I wonder where you’re at.
I wish I could have seen you,
when you were
warm.
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140,428 Literary Works • 673,184 Reviews
Thanks for sharing this metaphorically vivid poem. True, death is horrible to watch. I remember once when we dug up this rabbit and saw it all covered with maggots. Such a beautiful animal when live. Another time a dog remained splattered on the pavement for days. Very gruesome and it does make one wonder why nature has to be so brutally graphic. Why don’t we just fade away and retain some dignity? Why must a slow humiliating decay have to be part of our human reality?
Of course there are religious explanations and many seem quite content with these. But some of us just can’t stomach the whole thing. The poem expresses this point of view very well by graphically delving on the condition of the carcass, its stench, and its offensive appearance.
Then the poem shifts to the old man who is very close to joining the kitten in this gruesome destiny. He sweeps the cat aside and seems to accept it but the sadness in his eyes indicates otherwise and the sweeping aside takes on another meaning.
Sadly, by the time old age is reached, such persons have seen parents and other family members go the way of the cat. They have been forced to deal with the bitterness. Forced to grudgingly accept its inexorable reality. The poem focuses indirectly on this and in that manner succeeds in drawing in the reader emotionally.
Suggestions:
Please note that a “kitten” is a physically immature feline while a “child” is a physically immature human. The ternms are not interchangeable.
Please briefly describe the cruel position that the cat is in so we can see it.
No need to remind us that it is you who are seeing these things. We know.
How does the old man sweep the carcass aside? Does he do it with a broom? his cane? a kick? Hard to imagine him wanting to contaminate his shoe or his cane.
I found it hard to imagine the narrator feeling an urge to pick up a stinking, rotting carcass.
“It is times like [this]”.
“....my hate-filled gaze....” “hateful” leaves the possibility that the old man is considering the gaze itself as worthy of hate.
Instead of telling us that you are about to tell us about the dead cat- just tell us.
First some nitpicking- in the first stanza, there's an 'it's' when 'its' should be there.
I love the use of exclamation and question marks in the poem, giving it a very human voice and adding emotion. The contrast between the old man very much alive and the cat gone too soon is also very powerful, it's clear the poem is about more than just a dead cat, as well as the contemplation on how to treat the kitten with themes of respect for the dead.
I did find some of the line breaks a little jarring. Line breaks mid sentence can be really effective, and they often are in this poem, but for some of them here it seemed a little unnecessary and disrupted the voice.
Personally, the bit about the cat looking like it was sleeping really got to me. This is a very strong poem as it is, and only really needs a little bit of tweaking to just convey its message in its best way.
Thank you! I just posted it without any editing for feedback. If possible, could you tell me what line breaks I could get rid of? Thank you for the review!
-Lolo