The Gauze Panther watches

My nose and tongue

Taste-testing the humid air reflexively

Suddenly I want meat

I let the ants walk up my tongue

Like I might eat them

Bend my tongue muscles

To make a sacred bench in memorial

For the late golden toad they have eaten

The ants call my bluff

Sit on my bench

Play chess

Eat junk food

Wander through the cavern of my nose

To lay in the breeze of the ceiling fan

I’ve mounted on my uvula

To not shred them on my canines

Is the struggle against instinct

I didn’t realize I hungered for

Until I passed

Into the marsh’s sunroom

And held back my every sneeze

Later I saw a program playing silently

In the screen of a TV

Floating on a pond’s algae surface

It was the Gauze Panther in youth

Stalking through the rain

They stopped to swipe a human baby

From its crib by an open window

A fresh baked pie sat steaming on the sill

In that black and white animated dream

The panther brought teeth to neck

As silent as a final Earthly wish

For bustling glaciers

The panther stopped

When that bare throat cooed ma ma

As the panther debated

The shadow of a cross

Grew long overtop the babe’s brow

If a child was swiped

And there was no one there to see it

Would that panther still a horror be?

This afternoon, while my boyfriend & I
ate lunch on the patio,

we saw a deer emerge from the woods
& take its own green meal. After dinner,

we saw two deer pick their way
along the tree line. Before bed,

a deer cantered across the lawn,
almost invisible in the dark. Our dog

slept on the couch, soft
& gentle as a doe. I do not know

what deer want, but I know today
we have seen them everywhere:

in the grass &

After the book of Genesis and Surah Yusuf

Do not be angry with yourselves

for selling me here,

for it was to preserve life that God sent me ahead of you

said Joseph to his brothers

who did not recognize him

nor were they angry with themselves,

only hungry, and to tell the truth,

Joseph is still in the well,

Before we fasted I soaked

my first ever period underwear, stains like the scars

that fade for just that moment (when I press on them);

cleanliness isn’t permanent and I

thank God for this, for stains that return,

for my body’s gunk,

a few degrees warmer than I am.

Warmth is not happiness,

is “exuviated, bereft”

is exercising and hurting

leaving with full longing,

She turns on her radio.

Blood pours from the speakers.

A man drops out of the sky,

wearing tweeds and holding an umbrella.

A fire-engine roars down the street.

A young boy cleaves it in two with an axe.

The trees in the orchard grow apple dumplings.

A girl beheads her brother with the Stooges on vinyl.

Insanity can only take you so far.