2025 Commended poem: 'Forearm' by Sara Arabzadeh

Forearm

A cat died on my porch today
she told me she was leaving
before she had gone.
I sat on my garden’s chair
and roamed my memory
for an image to extract clarity.
I don’t have much sense these days,
I’m mumbling as I’m headed down the street
to bring my cat to the cemetery.
I’ll have to break in
because they don’t let you bury dead animals there.

I wonder where my cat has gone.
She’s not in this box.

I dream up similes to chronicle my pain
and they all feel weak.
I remind myself I'm talking about a cat.

I broke my hat on the way.
It was a ceramic teapot,
and my head began to bleed.
My cat would have laughed.
That was the relationship we shared.
So I buried her using the teapot as my shovel,
and I let her body sink into the dirt.
I wouldn't let go.
She was heavier than I remembered.
She didn't let me pick her up all that often.
I respected her for it.

After I covered her three feet high with dirt,
I placed a yellow rose on her mound.
I didn’t leave a monument in fear the graveyard manager might dig her out.
I know where she is,
by a medium-sized tree with extra large leaves and white bark.
I know where she is.
I'll visit her even in the snow
because she loved the cold.

Maybe she’ll be happier in death than she was with me.
Maybe I'll find out her memory is gold as they tend to be.

I’ve only recently started recovering bad memories.
It’s hard to hold the capacity for such a thing;
what’s the point?
Turns out, it helps me keep a grasp of reality.
My cat is no cat.
The graveyard doesn't exist.
The white tree is grey with a few twigs for branches on it.

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Dead Cat Poetry Prize - winners and commendees, 2025

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Sara Arabzadeh is an American multi-disciplinary Iranian-Irish artist based in London whose work centers on themes of grief.