Another Creature: Poems

Trash Night

Trash Night Dare you to tell a possum cravings pass. Dare you to tell a thumb-footed marsupial that. Dogs crave the pork bones they buried in your lily rows. You planted them lilies too close, the neighbor says. Is it blue bags or paper tonight. She’s set her evil eye on the laid-off man who drops his dogshit down the storm drains, noted the quivering tails of his hounds, who stalked the zoo wallaby down till they wore him out. Those dogs live one block down and one block over, yowl all day to heavy metal music. Pour boiling H20 in your weedcracks, even gasoline. That’s how we always do it. Why waste good money on spray. Look how white those McKenzie kids are, don’t they ever get outside. Fish fry grease will wilt that creeping nightshade, curl it up like witch feet. Why would you tolerate all that Creeping Charlie. But don’t it smell fine when it’s mowed. Neighbors crave other neighbors to pass their primordial insights to. God rest the zoo wallaby, cornered by Laidoff’s shelter saves, dragging their clanking chain lightning around from one to another place nobody wants them. How much will they charge Laidoff for the wallaby harassed and harangued to death while the he-wolves 17 and she-wolves howled in their enclosures. What did the slow-pacing bobcat think when he heard that death racket. Bet he craved some of that wallaby action, hey, born as he is to rip out throats. Only the possum heard it all. Only he knows, and damned if he’s going to say. His roof is your car’s underbelly, his carpet your driveway gravel. Breakfast is beetles and snails plus whatever you threw out. Ditto for dinner and lunch. When you wish him a happy Trash Night he makes a face. 18 ...