Dog and Kangaroo
The big Red,
Dogged by yap
And snap of the kelpie
Makes for
The dam, where
He wades in and turns
In a wallow,
Brown water lapping
His thrust chest.
The dumb dog
Throws itself
In at a gallop—no
Idea of what
It’s getting itself
Into. The man
On the bank
Yells the dog to heel,
But it steams on
With the hubris of
The Titanic, so damned
Sure of its teeth.
The kangaroo
Stands there like
The Baptist—waiting
For the dog
To get to him, then
Thrusts it under
Like a baker
At a bench
Kneading dough. If
The man had
A gun in the ute,
He’d shoot the bloody
Roo, but as it is,
He can only stand by
And curse.
Slug
God’s unfinished business, unboned,
unfurred, unhomed—you are merely
something hawked in the throat
and spat out on the garden path—God’s
glob of gob scat, his thick glottal curse.
Such an inglorious be-
ginning. Mired in the immortal mucus,
how can one hope to become more, how rise
to life’s little occasion? Small dumb
licked lip, what do you think of this? Do you
ever wonder why you were made so
unloveable? Untouchable, side-show freak?
Wonder if another could love you? If
a mother would tell a gorgeous daughter
choose the unlovely one, for he shall be eager
to please—the meek, for it is written
he shall inherit the vegetable patch. Little
brown muscle, look at you clench and move
off to measure the ground with your silver
tapes. Insidious, cunning as tongue
among the vulva, you get to the heart
of the matter—Come, you lisp,
come let us make lace the lettuce, let us lave
the veined skin, lick clean the green plate.