My People

Initially, I too appeared between the legs
of a woman in considerable discomfort.
A rather grisly scene but fairly common
among my kind. Those early days, I must
admit: a bit of a blur but generally
I was provided for, wiped off
and kept away from the well.
Dressed as a shepherdess until
I could handle an ax, it was then
I saw the golden arches and tasted of
the processed cheese and left my field
forever, disastrously it must be said
although it has led me here, addressing you
in this grand and ugly hall, paid
a nominal fee and all the grapes
I can eat. Well, I'm told they're grapes.
But I leap ahead when leaping backward
as well as vibrating in place
is more what's called for,
much like the role of the tongue
in the bell. Hear that?
Reminds me of the coyotes of our youth
before we hunted them to near extinction
then expensively reintroduced because
it turned out they were the only solution
to our mouse problem, at least
on the outside, in the cribs. Inside,
it's a grackle/possum/viper problem too,
even algae in some areas. Somehow
we've managed to ruin the sky
just by going about our business,
I in my Super XL, you in your Discoverer.
A grudging, fat-cheeked tribe,
we breed without season, inadvertently
or injected with quadruplets. The gods
we played with broke, they were made of glass.
The trees our fathers planted we will not see again.

Copyright © 2002 Dean Young All rights reserved
from The Kenyon Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission