A little dappled faun and a similarly dappled
baby bunny have been abandoned by veterinary science
because it is believed that they
are too injured to be saved.
I gather them up in my arms and take them home.
They nestle on my kitchen floor,
and seem responsive to touch
even though the little deer’s entrails
are hanging out.
Later the fawn seems to get better
and follows me around the kitchen,
nuzzling me with a pointy snout-
having worked up an appetite, I suppose.
On spindly, unstable legs he
wobbles and bites at my hands-
tiny hooves beating into my chest
and the solid molars of a dinosaur
are hurting my fingers.
I had felt pity and adoration for
this hurt creature before-
Now I feel only fear, and repulsion.
The bright lights of police cars
draw us out into the alley alongside the house.
We walk down to the gas station and purchase
beer and chocolate popsicles.
The owners of the store are Laotian
and running a betting operation and
Temple of the Dead.
You can simultaneously buy pickles,
bet on a cockfight, and light candles
for your deceased loved ones..
As we leave, we notice a crazed
homeless amputee waving a gasoline-soaked rag
and matches near dangerously near
a cadre of propane trucks filling up their tanks.
We run across the highway to the overpass
and dive facedown in the grass
and wait for the explosion.
We walk until dawn and find an
abandoned supermarket still filled
with a multitude of products-
every single one made out of some form of soybean.
The clothing, books, toys
somehow even canned oysters and lentils
and vegetables were not what they were
but really soybeans instead.
We have free reign of the store,
so we try on soy nightgowns and trousers
until we see an ominous clown making his way
across the empty parking lot.
He is suddenly standing there,
wrapped in polka-dots and pink feathers
and we are terrifed.
In the produce section, there is mainly
canned food- the tins are as big as
toxic waste drums, and their labelling
is delightfully old fashioned-
40’s Americana graphics and style.
There are other gathered, a rough band of refugees
and I am distraught because we can never leave this store again.
I will never see another ribbon or poundcake
that is not made out of soybeans.
I am sobbing into a heap of cabbages and snow peas
and my sons bring me a whole rack of iridescent ribbons
but there is something even more shady going on here..
Some kind of army is being formed
and I need to get out of here,
I’m trying to get to Europe
but I can only go for one day,
and it’s impossible.
My frog Yaroslava is alive,
but Gustav is ill
and I accidentally pull off his
little hand trying to move a branch for him.
I feel very guilty about this,
but I still have Yaroslava, at least.
All these sick and dying animals.
I can’t say I understand.