In this short poem, Kenyon captures how such "small" losses can clutch at us, and how ritual helps the living to part with the dead ("Like primitives we buried the cat / with his bowl."). She also evokes the strangeness (and irritation) those in mourning feel as they observe the world continuing on its way, oblivious to their grief ("a robin / burbles from a dripping bush / like the neighbor who means well / but always says the wrong thing.").