Animals

for Shar.

Miss. Teo, bullied, buffaloed by the song birds
hoarse harangue, “we demand,
meal worms and matches”.
That peregrine, who pecked on a half cigarette, eyes pinched,
hiding his human tongue within his beak valise,
and all the tentered hawks,
hanging on shoestrings,
all pack up their voices after lunch,
hand in their human accents to be stamped, at the bird clocking in.

At the road-side, the swollen chicken,
bird-drunk, lifted his skirts,
under that motley he had human hands,
plucked forearms,
bolstered by the lapwings,
(running their people tongues over people teeth)
he held you up,
taking your keys, camera, and the rolled souls of sea food -

- from the séance you held, Miss. Teo, (in the haute haute bistro)
when the crayfish answered chattering his claws,
and the tuna, boneless,
floundering its rubbery maw
sunk, vacuum packed, over the establishment.
(the diners picking through the ghosts like a salad)
You rolled them up, the creased deceased, in a slack cane mat
at the request of the blushing, gushing proprietess,
insisting,
in-sist-ing,
you packed up your spirits
and left.