squirrel poems
1.
At five, a squirrel chased me to my own
front door: small, like me, but less timid
though perhaps no more surprising (people
always thought I was a boy)--my father
beat it to death with a broom. At this point
eyes avert from his cruelty, the breath-
taking of it, but he was not a cruel man;
only afraid for his own young, the hollow
glint of mad disease that burns babies
out so fast. He sent its head first-class--
the lab reports came back for some other
sad decay, nerves tangled, shorted out
like wet on rot, but not rabies. Just something
gone wrong, unnameable as adolescent rage.
2.
If your Japanese conversational English students
are inattentive, if they do not do
their homework, if they linger glances
on your pale rosebud tits, it is time
to practice pronunciation
of American wildlife.
"Squirrel."
"Squirrel."
"Squirrel."
They will be
sorry.
3.
Everyone talks about black squirrels,
but I've never seen one. I wonder
where they live. Nuclear places,
my friend tells me; they're burnt
radioactive black. Their hearts
throb glowing green; they dream
about the Bomb, a brave new world
where acorns lodge in cracks
of ruined cities.
4.
Ever since that baby squirrel sent me
shrieking back to my own nest, ever since
my father pulped it gentle with that broom,
I have seen the shadows of small and harmless
things. They chatter apologetic only until
they've turned you into corners unexpected
where raging they may rend you with pinprick
claws. They'll creep off undetected as a mouse
in a bullfight and no one will ever find you, scattered
as (you are) nuts stored for the winter.
5.
Every city has its own pestilence and ours
is squirrels. In Tokyo it was crows, but here
they caper mad and bushy-tailed,
mutating our language—"Squirrelly." Nothing
to do with fidgets or chatter; it's all
who knows what they'll do. Anything. Decay
of dying empires: indifferent, they never
run. They line the sidewalks silent
as bull-fighters, snake-charmers with nothing
to lose.
6.
I want to tear you
into pieces, small
and manageable. I will hide
you in the ground, unmarked
places only I can find.
I will make you mine,
store you careful for my
winter and somewhere, maybe,
from some rich fragment
of your heart, another (better?
nicer? safer?) you will grow.
published in Windfall, Truman State University literary magazine (2003)