Kathy Nilsson

I’m having trouble looking animals in the eye. Their empty suits in outer space! Monkeys injected with a virus to show off Our eminent domain, the nervous system. Teacup pigs we breed and obsessive mice Worrying themselves bald in a miniature opera. For pleasures of the tongue we are Winking cattle out of meadows Slashing their throats and swiftly quartering them. In riding habits with gold flame pins we ride horses To hounds, chase a fennec fox until his red Coat flares up against the extinction Of light. Once in a circus we made An elephant disappear and he did not mind.

I have one good memory—a total Eclipse of the sun—when out of brilliance Dusk came swiftly and on the whole At seven years it felt good on a summer afternoon To be outrun by a horse from another century— The next morning I washed up On land like a pod of seals Struck with a longing for dark at noon— If the cessation of feeling is temporary It resembles sleep—if permanent, it resembles A little ice age—and the end of some Crewelwork by a mother who put honey Into my hands so the bees would love me.