Brian Kim Stefans

The future is one of place devoid of race. A jawbone under a sock is a geological clock. The plunking of rain on the termite-riddled windowpane: reading a Bible on that ledge is a tiny college. A Galápagos tortoise is killed (or, simply, unwilled). The Ebola virus weeps, or retires, because, like us, it tires. Meanwhile, below the subbasement, a Suede Revolution: the phlegmatic skill of the cryptographer soixante-huitards the teleprompter. The id in facsimile is suspended on a leash, twisting in the rain above that goddammed windowpane. Being is slightly corrupted by the Thinking that’s one-upped it (like the pun on pain) and will never love again.

Around the pool the hippos drool as if the chloride wouldn’t kill them. In fact, they like to play the fool, the harbinger, the pilgrim. The bird that plops into the glass makes a sound, then isn’t there. Spiders toss, in oleaginous mass, Goo Gone into the air. The ants that drag a beat-up car onto the lawn are emissaries of some forgotten prince or tsar from an HBO miniseries. The cheetah, panther, jaguar, and lynx (some of these might be the same) conjure images of Sphinx and other trademarked names. The dynamited hole now teems with insects shiny and obscene, crawling, dying, though it dreams an ectoplasm of green. My own two cats stiffen, confused at this profusion past the door. They bat at things they’ve often used for sound therapy before. I tell you this out of principle: that spiraling around a theme (while naming lots of animals) can supercharge a meme. My own skin founders in the rush of allergenic, if cautious, beasts. Eyes eye darkness, ears hear hush — the assassin’s humor feasts.