'Replacing Marmalade' by Jesse Stanyer

My love’s mother came in

on wet, wellied feet,

fretting of the lower garden

awash with tiny bones.

A fox did it, she said, Or a badger-

Poor little cat.

Can you come help put him back?

Here Lies Marmalade.

And here, and here.

A pollock trail of rotting linen

leading to little treasures, all-

a rib? Is this a rib?

Is this his leg? Did this hold, once,

all his great leaps, his wriggles

and pounces, stretches before the fire?

Bless his heart. And his head,

which is over there.

Anyway, we did what we could

with all the tattered scraps

of wormy fur and flesh,

to put the scattered kitty puzzle

back together again.

He sleeps beneath a slab, now.

Here Lies Marmalade.

Mostly.

All Rights. Jesse Stanyer.

Jesse Stanyer is an English and Philosophy graduate with ADHD living in the midlands and

bothering her dog in between making (and forgetting about) brews and trying to turn her

existential crises into poems. She’s hoping to one day get her act together.