Animals & Pets
Sabre-Toothed Tiger
If I was a sabre-toothed tiger, he said, I’d bite you up. If you were a sabre-toothed tiger, I said, you’d be dead & that was the first quiet I’d had all day.
Riding the Pony
When I was younger, my favorite thing was riding the pony outside the Safeway. My dad always said I should save my money for something better, but I could ride for miles all over the West & always end up back at the Safeway & all it cost was a quarter & I still can’t think of anything better than that.
Real Hero (masc)
Anyone can slay a dragon, he told me, but try waking up every morning & loving the world all over again. That’s what takes a real hero.
Real News
One morning she decided to throw away the paper & listen to the real news & by the end of the day, she knew that while people were sometimes confused, the rest of the world was not & she slept that night for the first time since she was a young girl.
Rat Snake
Just because you look like a rat doesn’t mean you are a rat, she said. Sometimes it means you’re a snake. She had a flair for biology.
Quick Hider
The only reason my cat’s still with me, she said, is that he hides quicker than everybody else.
Porcupine
A few said they’d be horses. Most said they’d be some sort of cat.
My friend said she’d like to come back as a porcupine.
I don’t like crowds, she said.
Pig Cat
Your cat seems very healthy,
I said to her.
That is not a cat,
she said.
That is a pig
in cat’s clothing.
Piranha Fear
I can’t take a bath, he said, or the piranhas will get me. Don’t worry about that, I said, Piranhas only eat clean people. You’ve got nothing to fear.
Peace Dance
This is a modern dance with real animals. It’s supposed to symbolize peaceful co-existence, but it’s usually pretty loud & the dancers have to watch where they step all the time. I heard someone say they didn’t know peace was so smelly.
Open to the Sky
The top of his head was open up to the sky & when he walked down the street he’d end up with strange things in there like the number of dogs in China, or the time it takes to cook a pig. It’s not really useful, he said, but I’d miss this stuff if it ever closed up.
Old Cat
Sometimes I think I’m going to end up all alone in a cold apartment living on cat food from a can but I guess that’s not so bad since I’m a cat after all.
Night Eyes
at dark when all the eyes come out
New Places
She moved with the grace of a cat & her tongue licked at the corner of her lips & I’m sure she would have helped me if I could have said I am just a child & don’t know what to do, but I was just a child & didn’t know how to tell her about those new & raw places in my heart, so she stood there in the dim light with her hair like a cloud of perfume around her face & neither of us spoke & now I wish I could go back & hold her & say someday we will laugh & ache about this.
Missing Link
Most people only remembered his hairy arms & never knew him well enough to learn about the tail.
Leafy Pizza
This is a giraffe bringing a hostess gift of juicy leaf pizza because he is so tired of there never being anything he can eat at these functions.
Last Wish
I don’t care what you do when I’m gone, he told us. Just don’t bury me where the dog can find me.
Jacques Cousteau
I saw Jacques Cousteau at the grocery store in L.A. once & I watched to see what he would buy, but he only got corn chips & some shoelaces & I don’t know what I expected, but I would’ve settled for a can of chunk light tuna even.
Joy of Spring
The birds brought seed & flowers & bits of brightly colored string & placed them in her hair while she slept so that she would remember the wild joy of spring when she finally awoke.
Iron John
One day he decided he was more dependent on the kindness of women than he liked so he went off to hunt wild beasts with his bare hands. But all he found was a stray dog & a couple of old pigeons & it was cold & he missed the sound of soft voices, so finally he came back & never worried about it again.