This is not a poem... by Ann Gibaldi Campbell

about a dying cat.

The cat is lying on a towel
inside a closet full of coats.

(Now there’s a word to make us mind
grammar lessons from the past:

Yesterday I lay in bed
after I laid the cat down next to me).

But what’s this nonsense about verbs?
I’ve let myself become distracted

from the poem I am not writing.
While the little cat lies dying

I think about the lie that I will tell my son:
“Cats, like grandfathers, go to heaven.”

This is not
a poem about a dying cat.



Ann Gibaldi Campbell earned her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since then, she has taught at the secondary and post-secondary levels as well as worked in special education. She identifies as a teacher, a mentor, and a feminist.