The morning is cool to the touch.
Did something die during the night?
Some timid creature with feathers
and a faraway abstracted smile?
It lingered from the Pleistocene
but its final traces have faded
in puddles of yellow scum.
American stood up on its haunches
and applauded. I heard the raves
but didn't wake in time to mourn.
The national bullies gather
in every village square. They leak
from the porous landscape and grate
their teeth, eagerly noshing aloud.
Their diets are fatal, but who cares?
I drive past mounded cadavers.
Gloomy police direct traffic
around the stink and bad faith.
No one has really died. They're only
re-enacting that which hasn't
happened yet. Even that creature
with the shabby feathers staggers
back to life, reclaiming its nest,
sadder but not a bit wiser.
