I think I could turn and live with animals—Whitman

O Walt you were wrong, they aren’t placid or self-contained

I just watched a spoonbill make carpaccio out of a frog

& crocodiles dining on wildebeests trying to cross the Maro River

It’s wrong to say O in poetry these days

which makes me want to have a loud orgasm right here

in an unashamed animal way

You must have been looking at some cows on a farm but who wants to                   live like that

standing around in a shed with sore tits, shitting claustrophobically

or standing around shitting & being tortured by flies & eating grass

I know you like grass but it’s no fun to be a pricey pre-hamburger

ruminating with no TV

If you’d had a cable subscription maybe you would have felt differently

watching NatGeo Wild & those exhausted herds on the Serengeti

Walt, I still love you even if in this instance you might have been

                a victim of the pastoral tradition

Let me tell you about animals: The green anaconda swallowed

               the young capybara whole

O o oh oh oh OHHHH Walt

Capybaras are the largest rodents on earth

I don’t think I’d survive as an animal for long, even a large one—look                   at the elephants

Imagine being murdered & becoming a doo-dad

or furniture inlay

Walt, I actually like sweating & whining about my condition

Hot flashing & bitching in my cream satin sheets, lying awake drunk                   & weeping in the dark

I’d definitely like to own more things

An electric knife sharpener for instance would come in handy

for carving up the less fortunate on special holidays

I want to be lucky as long as I can

Walt, Walt, I don’t think death is luckier or leads life forward

               like you said

I don’t think I’m going to grow from the grass you love

I’m just going to have one last blackout in a dirty pink lace dress

& be eaten by tiny ugly legless larvae