Therese Lloyd

When I was “in despair” (the dark days when I actually used such terms) I noticed the behavior of animals — sleep when tired, eat when hungry That made a lot of sense to me and yet I felt different I felt my humanness too much No fly ever wonders whether it should make lots and lots of maggots It gives birth on a mound of cat food or inside the rubbish bin As far as I know it’s not worried about overpopulation or what sort of environment its kids will grow up in My humanness sees me at an art gallery watching others watching walls My humanness gives me dark thoughts of cruel behavior You are in the States a visa glitch and there you remain Like Star Trek, I talk to you on a screen your face half a second out of sync with your speech I’m in the future my Tuesday is already over and I want to tell you all about it to prove my superiority That lovely conceit of time that saw people travel from all over the world to be in Gisborne for the first sunrise of the new millennium Remember how we all thought the sewer pipes would burst and the criminals would escape or something like that Y2K packs sent to every household because no one knew for certain what the numbers 2000 really meant Somewhere, people, important people cowered in bunkers fearing the worst