My childhood home is full
of dead dogs
Mum keeps hers in an urn
in the sideboard, says
one day she’ll scatter him,
he’s still there in the dining room
waiting
Dead dogs would hang
from dad’s chandelier
if he had chandeliers
Instead, they hang on
lampshades
When I go back and take a bath
dead Labradors climb the plug hole
I try not to wash when I visit
I stink of dead dog
Don’t you dare dig up
the garden plants I can’t face
their empty graves
I will never let a dog within fifty feet of my home
I trawl through shelters
My parents collected so many dead dogs
they were forced to buy
separate houses, new duvets
to hide their dead dogs
The air here is so thick with sandwich grit
Who knew a human
could cough up a hairball?
I fear ashes are like spores
a dead dog is growing.
—Published 28th of January 2024
About Adam Panichi
Adam Panichi is a British poet living in Italy. A runner-up in the Ledbury Poetry Prize, his work has been published in I’ll Show You Mine, VAINE, Dust, berlin lit, Atrium and Magma. Italian translations of a selection of his poems are forthcoming with Taut Editori. Adam’s debut pamphlet Cupid, Grown was shortlisted for both Broken Spine and Poetry London’s pamphlet prizes, and placed second in the Paper Swans Pamphlet Prize.