My mother never told me
When my cat died two years ago.
She buried it in a box in the backyard
Where the fishbones were buried;
Hundreds of them, gleaming white
Shredded by eager cat paws.
I didn't cry.

My mother never told me
When the bird died last spring.
She flushed it down the toilet
When I was at school,
And I came home and found
The empty wire cage in the trash bin
Behind our house
With a single feather stuck to the bars.
I didn't cry then either.

And my mother never told me
When daddy died.
He was just a cat among the fishbones
A bird in the sewer with rotting feathers.
I came home for Christmas and
She'd thrown out his favorite chair
And bought a new TV instead.
I would have cried then if I had known how
But some things aren't worth crying over:
A cat
A bird
A memory.