Pets With No Bodies Poem by royness ( ' ' )

She seemed too huge to be dead.
Flopsy, our rabbit,
Our mad albino –
frozen stiff like meat from the freezer.

Mummy said we had to help her
get to heaven – which meant
getting rid of the body.
We sealed her up in a shoebox full of sawdust.

It had to be hurried. Dad
would soon be home. Dad who
flushed fish down the toilet.
I knew. I had seen them
gaping, pleading –
until the waters rushed in and swept them out
into the sewers, where I guess
the alligators ate them.

How could he know I had named them?

Would he try to flush Flopsy?
I didn’t think she would fit. What if she got
stuck, and he had to keep flushing,
drowning the body deeper into the basin?
I saw him pull the rabbit out
by the ears, hair matted to the skin -
A failed trick. Her dank,
accusing eyes.

We decided to bury her. Not in the garden,
where a dog or fox might find her -
but in the field which bordered the house,
under the stalks of corn, or wheat, or barley –
I carried a shovel dutifully over my shoulder.

Mummy says she has gone up to heaven
I ask her:
When I die will you bury my body?

She tells me:
When you die, you won’t need your body -
but I think that’s not really an answer.

We return at the end of the Summer -
sheaves of wheat lay tied in bundles, tractors
churn the earth up into tracks.

The cross lies splintered and broken.
Tufts of white fur lay scattered over the dirt.

She covers my eyes.
I try to imagine
myself
without a body –

a head wedged into a toilet,
a thrusting hand, a torrent of water.