Burying the Cat

Painting by Constance Shields


“Burying The Cat”

For years I have known that to confess
is to say what one doesn’t feel. I hereby
confess I was not angry with that dog,
a shepherd, who had seen something foreign
on his property. I’d like to say I was feeling
a sadness so numb that I was a machine myself,
with bad cogs and faulty wiring. But
I’m telling this three years after the fact.
Nothing is quite what it was
after we’ve formed a clear picture of it.


Stephen Dunn

Posted over on Robert Peake