Orange Cat

I contemplate a dead orange cat.
And he contemplates me.
I am standing in the gutter in the street,
he is laying just inside the road.

I want to move him from danger,
this dead cat, for my own sake,
but all I can do is stand over him,
sobbing incoherently into the telephone.

I remember hearing once,
in catholic school,
something about a little bird dying
every time a boy wanks off.

And I would just picture my classmates
their braces shining holy
in the shaking computer light,
mouths turned upwards toward the heavens.
And then, just beyond the swing-set,
a tiny sparrow, knowingly,
careens toward the manicured lawn.

I wanted to think of the cat's parents
leaving niblets on the porch,
worried hands on hips, patting little heads.
I tried.

But all I could think,
standing there in the street,
is that every time you break an eager heart,
in a hurry,
on the internet,

An orange cat dies,
eyes open,
in a ditch,
in a suburb.

-Hannah Morris